1711 Dec 25, London’s St.
Paul’s Cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was declared
officially complete by Parliament. In fact construction was to
continue for several years after that, with the statues on the roof
only being added in the 1720s. In 2008 Leo Hollis authored “The
Phoenix: St Paul’s Cathedral and the Men Who Made Modern London."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Paul%27s_Cathedral)

1711 Dec 31, Duke of
Marlborough was fired as English army commander.
(MC, 12/31/01)

1711 Horse racing began at the
Royal Ascot track west of London. The 1st four day royal meeting was
held there in 1768.
(SFC, 6/21/06,
p.A2)(www.icons.org.uk/nom/nominations/royal-ascot)
1711 Daniel Defoe, author and
enthusiast of Latin America, persuaded the British government to set
up the South Sea Company to trade with the region. Speculation
fueled value in the company’s shares, but the bubble crashed in
1720. In 1960 Virginia Cowles authored “The Great Swindle: The Story
of the South Sea bubble."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.87)
1711 English ships captured the
Spanish galleon San Joaquin, part of a fleet returning to Spain from
Portobelo under Don Miguel Augustin de Villanueva, who was mortally
wounded. New World wealth was on another ship, which managed to
return to Spain.
(WSJ, 1/31/07, p.D6)

1712 The poem “The Rape of the
Lock" by English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was anonymously
published in Lintot’s Miscellany. It was revised, expanded and
reissued under Pope’s name in 1714.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Lock)

1712 Nov 4, The Bandbox Plot,
an attempt to kill Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and Lord Treasurer,
was foiled by Jonathan Swift (the author of Gulliver’s Travels), who
happened to be visiting Harley.
(Econ, 11/6/10,
p.74)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandbox_Plot)

1712 English Tories introduced
a stamp tax, which taxed newspapers per sheet. Papers were then
published as broadsheets, single sheets with huge pages
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.18)

1712 Robert Walpole, later
British prime minister, served a spell in the Tower of London on
charges of financial impropriety.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.89)

1712-1862 England taxed soap with the declaration
that it was a frivolous luxury of the aristocracy.
(SFC, 4/17/99, p.B3)

1713 Apr 11, The Peace of
Utrecht was signed, France ceded Maritime provinces to Britain. The
French colony of Acadia, now Nova Scotia, was ceded to Great
Britain. The Acadians had come from western France to fish and farm.
Those who would not swear allegiance to the crown were deported.
Many of these deportees went to the bayou country of Louisiana.
(WUD, 1994, p.7)(WSJ, 9/4/96, p.A12)(HN, 4/11/98)
1713 Apr 11, Spain ceded the
2.5-sq. mile Gibraltar in perpetuity to Britain under the Treaty of
Utrecht.
(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A29)(SFC, 2/19/02, p.A2)

1713 May 25, John Stuart 3rd
earl of Bute, English premier (1760-63), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)

1713-1768 Laurence Sterne, English author: "Free
thinkers are generally those who never think at all."
(AP, 6/19/97)

1714 Jan 7, A typewriter was
patented by Englishman Henry Mill. It was built years later.
(MC, 1/7/02)

1714 Jul, Britain’s Parliament
passed the Longitude Act. It established the Board of Longitude and
offered monetary rewards (Longitude Prize) for anyone who could find
a simple and practical methods for the precise determination of a
ship's longitude.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act)(Econ, 5/16/15, p.72)

1714 Aug 1, Queen Anne
(1702-1714) of Britain died at age 48. By the 1701 Act of Settlement
Prince George Louis (54) of Hanover succeeded her as King George I
(d.1727).
(PCh, 1992,
p.279)(www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon53.html)

1714 Oct 20, Georg Ludwig of
Hanover was crowned as George I of England. Queen Anne of England
died and was succeeded by the Elector of Hanover. The
Hanoverian dynasty ruled to 1901. [see Oct 31]
(LGC-HCS, p.36)(HN, 10/20/98)(WUD, 1994, p.644)

1714 Oct 31, Georg Ludwig van
Hanover was crowned as King George I of England. [see Oct 20]
(MC, 10/31/01)

1714 Tobias Swinden
(1659-1719), English vicar, authored “an Enquiry into the Nature and
Place of Hell."
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.26)
1714 A British comedy called
“The Winder" was staged.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.132)
1714 Henrietta Howard
(b.1689-1767) traveled with her husband to Hanover to the court of
George Louis, heir to the English throne. In 1720 she was appointed
as Woman of the Bedchamber to Princess Caroline and in 1723 became a
royal mistress. In 2007 Tracy Borman authored “Henrietta Howard:
King’s Mistress, Queen’s Servant."
(Econ, 10/6/07,
p.99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Howard,_Countess_of_Suffolk)

1715 Nov 12, Forces of King
George I fought a rebel army at Preston, Lancashire. The rebels were
defeated as government reinforcements arrived the next day. 1468
rebels, including over 1000 Scots, were taken prisoner. William
Maxwell (36), Fifth Earl of Nithsdale, was soon condemned to death
and taken to the Tower of London.
(ON, 8/20/11,
p.9)(www.information-britain.co.uk/famdates.php?id=323)

1715 Nov 13, The pro-James
Francis Edward Stuart rebellion surrendered following the battle at
Preston, Lancashire.
(www.information-britain.co.uk/famdates.php?id=323)
1715 Nov 13, The English fought
the Scots at the Battle of Sheriffmuir in Scotland. The battle was
inconclusive with both sides claiming victory. However in strategic
terms Argyll had halted the Jacobite advance.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sheriffmuir)

1715 Nov 24, The Thames River
froze.
(MC, 11/24/01)

1715 Nov 25, England granted
the 1st patent to an American. It was for processing corn.
(MC, 11/25/01)

1715 Daniel Parker
(~1700-1775), English violin maker, visited Stradivari’s workshop
about this time in Cremona, Italy, and acquired an abundance of the
master’s secrets in making violins.
(Econ, 1/2/10,
p.11)(www.amacviolins.com/amac/gallery/doc/makers.htm)

1715-1721 Colen Campbell and William Kent built
the Burlington House in London, England. In 1854 the Cavendish
family sold it to the government. Lady Cavendish had complained that
its rooms were too narrow for hooped-skirted ladies to waltz in.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.19)

1715-1770 France reneged on the terms of its debt
five times during this period. Britain never missed an interest
payment.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.104)

1716 Feb 23, Lady Nithsdale
(25) planned and executed the escape of her husband, William Maxwell
(36), Fifth Earl of Nithsdale, as he awaited execution in the Tower
of London. They both escaped to France and settled in Rome as
members of James Francis Stuart’s court-in-exile.
(ON, 8/20/11, p.10)(http://tinyurl.com/7hdz7oe)

1716 Dec 26, Thomas Gray,
English poet, was born: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: "The
paths of glory lead but to the grave."; also: "...where ignorance is
bliss/’Tis folly to be wise."
(440.com)

1716 Thomas Fairchild brushed
with a feather pollen from a sweet William over the stigma of a
carnation, creating the first human-made hybrid plant.
(www.orangepippin.com/articles/yorkshireapples.aspx)(SSFC, 4/19/09,
Books p.J7)

1717 Jun 4, The Freemasons
established their Grand Lodge in London. They had begun in the 13th
century as a guild of masons, who worked in soft stone called
freestone.
(HN, 6/4/98)(WSJ, 2/6/02, p.A16)

1717 Jul 17, Handel's "Water
Music" was played for George I on the occasion of a royal barge trip
on the Thames.
(LGC-HCS, p.40)(Internet)

1717 Sep 24, Horace Walpole
(1797), son of Robert Walpole, author and Fourth Earl of Orford, was
born. He was a life time collector of bibelots and authored one of
the first Gothic novels: "The Castle of Otranto" (1764). "The whole
secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a
thousand things well." Wilmarth Lewis (d.1979) later edited Yale's
48-volume edition of Walpole's correspondence. He created the Gothic
novel genre.
(AP, 1/13/98)(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A24)(HN, 9/24/00)

1717 Isaac Newton, England’s
master of the mint, recommended a temporary freeze on the value of
the gold guinea to establish an appropriate ratio between the prices
of gold and silver and their supply.
(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A24)

1718 May 15, James Puckle, a
London lawyer, patented the world's 1st machine gun.
(MC, 5/15/02)

1718 Nov 22, A force of British
troops under Lt. Robert Maynard captured English pirate Edward Teach
(b.~1682), better known as "Blackbeard" (aka Captain Drummond),
during a battle near Ocracoke Island, off the North Carolina coast.
They beheaded him. The governor of Virginia had put a price of 100
pounds on his head.
(AP,
11/22/97)(www.outerbankschamber.com/relocation/history/ocracoke.cfm)

1718 Nov 13, John Montagu
(d.1792), fourth Earl of Sandwich and purported inventor of the
sandwich, was born. In 2012 the town of Sandwich staged a dramatic
re-enactment of the moment when the earl was said to have invented
the sandwich, to mark the 250th anniversary of the bread-based
snack.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Montagu,_4th_Earl_of_Sandwich)(AFP,
5/13/12)

1719 Apr 25, Daniel Defoe's
novel "Robinson Crusoe" was published in London. Crusoe was based on
the story of Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721), a man who was
voluntarily put ashore on a desert island (1704-1709).
(WSJ, 8/25/98,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe)

1720 Jan-1720 Aug, Speculators
in London bid up the price of the South Sea Co., which had been
granted a trading monopoly with South America and the Pacific. The
South Sea Bubble burst and London markets crashed. Speculation in
government chartered trading companies had led to artificially
inflated equity prices with high leverage. The average stock dropped
98.5%. It reportedly took 100 years for markets to recover. In 1999
Edward Chancellor published "Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of
Financial Speculation." In 2002 Malcolm Balen authored “The Secret
History of the South Sea Bubble."
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.B2)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(WSJ,
6/1/99, p.A20)(Econ, 1/3/04, p.42)

1720 Jun 9, The British
Parliament passed the Bubble Act following the collapse of the
South Sea Company. It is also known as the Royal Exchange and London
Assurance Corporation Act 1719, because those companies were
incorporated under it. It delayed the development of the joint-stock
company by over a century.
(Econ, 3/2/13,
p.66)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_Act)

1720 Dec 31, Charles Edward
Stuart, grandson of James II, known as the Young Pretender and
Bonnie Prince Charlie, was born.
(HN, 12/31/98)

1720 Jan-1720 Aug, Speculators
in London bid up the price of the South Sea Co., which had been
granted a trading monopoly with South America and the Pacific. The
South Sea Bubble burst and London markets crashed. Speculation in
government chartered trading companies had led to artificially
inflated equity prices with high leverage. The average stock dropped
98.5%. It reportedly took 100 years for markets to recover. In 1999
Edward Chancellor published "Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of
Financial Speculation." In 2002 Malcolm Balen authored “The Secret
History of the South Sea Bubble."
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.B2)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(WSJ,
6/1/99, p.A20)(Econ, 1/3/04, p.42)

1720 England passed a law that
prohibited the emigration of skilled craftsmen and the export of
machinery, models and plans.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)

1721 Apr 14, William Augustus
duke of Cumberland, English army leader ("Butcher of Culloden"), was
born.
(MC, 4/14/02)

1721 Apr 26, The smallpox
vaccination was 1st administrated. Lady Mary Wortley Montegu had
returned to England following a stay in Turkey with her ambassador
husband. She had learned of a procedure to inoculate against
smallpox and began a campaign to have the procedure established.
(ON, 9/01, p.1)(MC, 4/26/02)

1721 Aug 3, Grinling Gibbons
(b.1648), Dutch-British sculptor and wood carver, died. He was known
for his work in England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinling_Gibbons)

1721 Robert Walpole (1676-1745)
began serving as England’s first lord of the treasury and chancellor
of the exchequer. He shared power with John Carteret (later 1st Earl
Granville) until 1724 and with Townshend, whom he left in charge of
foreign affairs, until 1730. Thereafter his ascendancy was complete
until 1742.
(www.answers.com/topic/robert-walpole)

1722 Mar 29, Emanuel Swedenborg
(b.1688), Swedish scientist and clairvoyant, died in London. In 1744
he entered into a spiritual phase in which he experienced dreams and
visions. The foundation of Swedenborg's theology was laid down in
“Arcana Cœlestia" (Heavenly Secrets), published in eight volumes
from 1749 to 1756.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg)

1722 Jonathon Swift, author and
pamphleteer, urged his fellow countrymen to boycott English goods
and "burn everything that came from England, except their people and
their Coals."
(SFEC, 12/22/96, zone1 p.6)

1722-1735 Britain’s PM Walpole built his Palladian
house in Norfolk.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.89)

1723 Jul 10, William Blackstone
(d.1780), English jurist (Blackstone's Commentaries), was born in
England. He wrote that: "Husband and wife are one, and that one is
the husband." His "Commentaries on the Laws of England" were a
dominant source for the men who ratified the US Constitution.
(WUD, 1994, p.155)(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A15)(WSJ,
1/25/99, p.A19)(MC, 7/10/02)

1723 Jul 16, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, British portrait painter and first president of the royal
Academy of Arts, was born.
(HN, 7/16/98)

1723 Britain’s Black Act, under
the government of PM Robert Walpole, directed that anyone convicted
of blackening or disguising his face to hunt dear could be hanged.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.89)
1723 Sir Christopher Wren
(b.1632), British astronomer and architect, died. He designed the
current St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. In 2003 Lisa Jardine
authored "On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir
Christopher Wren."
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)(HN, 10/20/98)(SSFC, 2/2/03,
p.M1)

1725 Oct 17, John Wilkes
(d.1797), English journalist, was born. He became a MP, Lord Mayor
of London and called for independence of Britain's American
colonies.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes)

1725-1774 Sir Robert Clive, soldier of fortune.
Known as "Clive of India" he wrested Bengal away from the French on
behalf of the British East India Co. [see 1757]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)

1725-1809 Paul Sandby, considered to be the father
of English watercolorists.
(Hem., 3/97, p.92)

1726 Bishop George Berkeley
wrote his poem: On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in
America, which included the line "Westward the course of empire
takes its way." The poem was written on behalf of a plan to build an
English college in Bermuda.
(SFC, 3/28/03, p.A3)
1726 Jonathan Swift
(1667-1745), Irish born clergyman and English writer, authored
Gulliver's Travels.
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.14)
1726 Britain’s Admiralty
Building was built on a block of the Middle East section of London.
(Econ, 6/21/14, p.58)

1728 Jan 29, The Beggar’s Opera
by John Gay (d.1732), with music arranged by John Christopher
Pepusch, had its premier at the Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. Gay
intended it to be a parody of Italian opera and a satirization of
the Walpole administration. He wrote new lyrics to popular tunes and
his "ballad opera" was a great success.
(LGC-HCS, p.45)(ON, 2/04, p.11)

1728 Oct 27, Captain James Cook
(d.1779), explorer, was born in a small village near Middlesbrough,
Yorkshire. His discoveries included the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook)

1728 Ephraim Chambers
(1680-1740) produced his Cyclopedia, a popular British reference
work. An expanded French translation began in 1746.
(WSJ, 6/29/05,
p.D8)(www.nndb.com/people/027/000094742/)

1729 Jan 12, Edmund Burke
(d.1797), British politician and author, was born in Dublin. Burke
advocated consistent and sympathetic treatment of the American
colonies: "A very great part of the mischiefs that vex this world
arises from words."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke)(V.D.-H.K.p.224)(AP,
7/20/97)(AP, 11/29/98)

1730 Edward Scarlett, a London
optician, began anchoring eyeglasses to the ears with rigid side
pieces called temples.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, Z1 p.8)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R21)
1730 Britain’s Stephenson
Clarke Shipping Ltd was established. The company was forced to
liquidate in 2012.
(Reuters, 8/9/12)

1730s In Buckinghamshire,
England, the Palladian Bridge was built in the Stowe Landscape
Gardens. Lancelot "Capability Brown did the landscaping.
(SSFC, 3/16/03, p.C6)

1731 Apr 26, Daniel Defoe
(~70), English author, died. His work included the novels "Robinson
Crusoe," "Roxana" and the pamphlet "The Shortest Way With
Dissenters." In 1998 Richard West published the biography
"Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures."
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)(MC, 4/24/02)(MC, 4/26/02)

1731-1800 William Cowper, English poet: "No man
can be a patriot on an empty stomach."
(AP, 11/28/99)

1731-1802 Erasmus Darwin, noted physician and
grandfather of biologists Charles Darwin and Francis Galton,
explored evolutionary concepts in his work "Zoonomia" or the "Laws
of Organic Life" that were related to those of French biologist Jean
Baptiste Lamarck. Darwin believed that species modified themselves
to their environment in a purposeful way. Combining 18th Century
values of materialism with simple observations, he is usually noted
as a transitional figure in evolutionary theory.
(HNQ, 9/14/00)

1732 Dec 23, Richard Arkwright
(d.1792), English inventor (spinning frame) and industrialist, was
born into a poor family in Preston. He amassed one of the first
factory fortunes. He invented a water-powered cotton-spinning
machine that became the basis for huge cotton mills.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4,8)(MC, 12/23/01)

1732 William Hogarth published
his engravings of “The Harlot’s Progress." They were wildly popular.
(Econ, 2/11/12, p.83)

1733 Feb 4, In England the
widow Mrs Lydia Duncomb (80), her long term infirm companion Mrs
Harrison (60), and servant Ann Price (26) were murdered during a
robbery. The servant Sarah Malcolm (22) of County Durham was
indicted. She strongly defended herself but was convicted and
executed on Mar 7.
(Econ, 9/28/13, p.80)(http://tinyurl.com/kcbjla7)

1733 Feb 12, English
colonists led by James Oglethorpe founded Savannah, Ga. Gen. James
Edward Oglethorpe sailed up the Savannah River with 144 English men,
women and children and in the name of King George II chartered the
Georgia Crown Colony. He created the town of Savannah, to establish
an ideal colony where silk and wine would be produced, based on a
grid of streets around six large squares.
(SFC, 6/25/95, p.T-7)(SFEC,11/30/97, p.T4)(AP,
2/12/98)

1733 Mar 13, Joseph Priestley
(d.1804), English chemist, author and clergyman, was born. He is
credited with the discovery of oxygen.
(HN, 3/13/99)(WUD, 1994 p.1142)

1733 May 17, England passed the
Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum and molasses imported to
the colonies from a country other than British possessions.
(MC, 5/17/02)

1733 Voltaire authored his
"Lettres Anglaises" in which he hailed England as a "nation of
philosophers" and recognized the English Enlightenment.
(WSJ, 12/5/00, p.A24)
1733 John Bartram, American
farmer, began sending seed boxes from Philadelphia to Peter
Collinson, a London cloth merchant and passionate plant collector.
(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.W3)
1733 John Kay, a British
weaver, invented the flying shuttle, allowing the production of
wider pieces of cloth.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.15)
1733 Dr. W. Houston, British
botanist, died.
(WUD, 1994, p.689)

1735 Feb 27, Dr. John Arbuthnot
(b.1667), English physician, satirist and polymath, died. In 1712 he
invented the figure of John Bull, a national personification of
Great Britain in general and England in particular, especially in
political cartoons and similar graphic works.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull)

1735 Sep 22, Robert Walpole
became the 1st British PM to live at 10 Downing Street.
(MC, 9/22/01)

1735 William Hogarth made
drawings for "The Rake’s Progress."
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.7)

1735 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
translated a book on Abyssinia by a Portuguese Jesuit: “A Voyage to
Abyssinia." In 1759 Johnson authored his prose fiction “The History
of Rasellas, Prince of Abissinia." In the novel morality and
happiness are shown not as matters of simple alternatives but
sometimes impossible ones.
(www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_se/personal/cjmm/Rasselas.html)(http://tinyurl.com/ld7bp)

1735 Henry Fielding set up his
own theater company at the Little Theater in London's Haymarket. His
1st production was Pasquin.
(ON, 9/03, p.8)

1735 In London, England, Col.
Sir Thomas De Veil began dispensing justice from a house on Bow
Street. De Veil was succeeded by Henry Fielding.
(SFC, 7/14/06, p.A2)

1736 May 26, British and
Chickasaw Indians defeated the French at the Battle of Ackia. In
northwestern Mississippi the Chickasaw Indians, supported by the
British, defeated a combined force of French soldiers and Chocktaw
Indians, thus opening the region to English settlement.
(AHD, 1971, p.11)(HN, 5/26/98)

1736 Aug 8, Mahomet Weyonomon,
a Mohegan sachem or leader, died of smallpox while waiting to see
King George II to complain directly about British settlers
encroaching on tribal lands in the Connecticut colony. The tribal
chief was buried in an unmarked grave in a south London churchyard.
(AP, 11/22/06)(http://tinyurl.com/ymbn3c)

1736 Henry Fielding presented
his play "The Historical Register for the Year 1736," a pointed
attack on the British government of PM Walpole.
(ON, 9/03, p.8)

1736 Britain’s Mortmain Act
(literally meaning 'dead hand') was introduced to protect the rights
of heirs and frustrate benefactors determined to disinherit their
families. It invalidated charitable gifts of land or buildings
unless they were made in the last year of the donor's life.
(www.pnnonline.org/article.php?sid=2398&mode=thread&order=0)

1736 Samuel Baldwin of
Hampshire, England, had his body cast into the ocean. He requested
this so that his wife could not carry out her threat to dance on his
grave.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, Z1 p.2)

1737 Jan 29, Thomas Paine,
political essayist, was born in England and went on to write "The
Rights of Man" and "The Age of Reason." He lived his final years in
poverty and obscurity, and died June 8, 1809.
(HN, 1/29/99)(HNQ, 9/21/99)

1737 May, Sir Robert Walpole
argued for censorship of a play in the House of Commons of a satire
called "The Golden Rump." Walpole pressed through Parliament a
Licensing Act that lasted over 200 years.
(WSJ, 10/14/97, p.A22)(ON, 9/03, p.8)

1737 The English puppet opera
“The Dragon of Wantley" was written with music by John Frederick
Lampe and libretto by Henry Carey.
(ST, 5/20/04, p.C8)

1637 The Archbishop of
Canterbury launched an effort to revoke the charter of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, but the boat carrying the English
authorities sank on its way. This period in Pilgrim and Puritan
history was covered by Sarah Vowell in “The Wordy Shipmates" (2008).
(WSJ, 11/25/08, p.A13)

1738 Jun 4, George III was born
(d.1820). He was the King of Great Britain and Ireland from
1760-1820, and the King of Hanover from 1815-1820. He was
responsible for losing the American colonies. He passed the Royal
Marriages Act, which made it unlawful for his children to marry
without his consent.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(AHD, 1971, p.552)(WSJ, 5/23/96,
p.A-10)

1739 Oct 17, King George II
granted Thomas Coram, retired sea captain, a royal charter to
establish "a hospital for the reception, maintenance and education
of exposed and deserted young children."
(ON, 9/02, p.8)

1739 Oct 19, England declared
war on Spain over borderlines in Florida. The War is known as the
War of Jenkins’ Ear because a member of Parliament waved a dried ear
and demanded revenge for alleged mistreatment of British sailors.
British seaman Robert Jenkins had his ear amputated following a 1731
barroom brawl with a Spanish Customs guard in Havana and saved the
ear in his sea chest.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.555)(HN, 10/19/98)(PCh, 1992,
p.292)

1740 Aug 1, Thomas Arne's song
"Rule Britannia," which celebrated Britain’s military and commercial
prowess, was performed for the 1st time. It grew to become the
unofficial anthem.
(HN, 8/1/98)(Econ, 2/3/07, SR p.3)

1740 Henry Fielding began
working as a lawyer and read "Pamela or Virtue Rewarded" by Samuel
Richardson. Fielding soon authored his satire "Shamela" in response.
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1740 The British sent a huge
amphibious force to attack the Spanish in Santiago de Cuba as part
of the War of Jenkin’s Ear. Of 28,000 men, 22,000 were dead within a
year due to disease. Only about 1,000 perished in combat.
(Econ, 8/13/11, p.80)

1740s The domed Radcliffe
Camera at Oxford, designed by James Gibbs, was completed in the late
1740s.
(SSFC, 2/4/01, p.T8)

1741 Mar 25, The London
Foundling Hospital opened in temporary accommodations in Hatton
Garden following extensive efforts by former sea captain Thomas
Coram (1668-1751).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundling_Hospital)

1741 Sep 14, George Frederick
Handel (1685-1759) finished "Messiah" oratorio, after working on it
in London non-stop for 23 days. Messiah premiered April 13, 1742.
(LGC-HCS, p.41)(
http://www.gospelcom.net/chi/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps147.shtml)

1742 Jan 14, English astronomer
Edmond Halley, who observed the comet that now bears his name, died
at age 85. In 2005 Julie Wakefield authored “Halley’s Quest," in
which she covered Halley’s travels to Brazil to map the Atlantic’s
magnetic declinations and hopefully solve the problem of calculating
longitude.
(AP, 1/14/98)(WSJ, 12/20/05, p.D8)

1742 Nov 12, The British
warship Centurion, commanded by Commodore George Anson, sailed into
Macao with a crew of some 200 sick with scurvy.
(ON, 4/01, p.7)

1742 Henry Fielding authored
his novel "Joseph Andrews." It dealt seriously with moral issues
using a comic approach and was later regarded as a milestone in
English literature.
(ON, 9/03, p.1)

1742 Sir Robert Walpole
resigned from his duties as British prime minister in order to avoid
impeachment.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Walpole)

1743 Mar 23, George Frideric
Handel's oratorio "Messiah" had its London premiere. During the
"Hallelujah Chorus," Britain's King George II, who was in
attendance, stood up — followed by the entire audience.
(AP, 3/23/08)

1743 Jun 20, The British
warship Centurion under Commodore George Anson engaged and overcame
the Spanish treasure galleon, Nuestra Senora de Covadonga, near the
Philippines. 58 Spaniards were killed and 83 wounded. Anson captured
over 1 million Spanish silver dollars and 500 pounds of native
silver.
(ON, 4/01, p.7)

1743 Jun 27, King George of the
English defeated the French at Dettingen, Bavaria. English armies
were victorious over the French at Dettingen. This event was
celebrated by Handel in his composition "Dettingen Te Deum."
(BLW, Geiringer, 1963 ed. p. 317)(HN, 6/27/98)

1743 Edward Pococke
(1604-1691), English Orientalist, authored his travel book
“Description of the East."
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.127)
1743 Huguenots in Spitalfields,
England, who had fled persecution in France as Calvinists, built
their Nueve Eglise place of worship at Fournier Street and Brick
Lane. Their community lasted until 1809. The church was later
inherited by Methodists. In 1898 it became a synagogue for Jews
fleeing pogroms in Russia. In 1976 it was transformed into a mosque
for the Bangladeshis and Pakistanis who escaped poverty in South
Asia.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.85)(Econ, 6/30/12, SR p.8)
1743 "Kitchup" was declared a
kitchen staple in a British housekeeper's guide. Fish, mushroom and
walnut emerged as the 3 main ketchups.
(SFC, 8/27/03, p.A1)
1743 Gen’l. James Oglethorpe of
England departed Georgia following some small scandal.
(SFEC,11/30/97, p.T4)

1744 Feb 21, The British
blockade of Toulon was broken by 27 French and Spanish warships
attacking 29 British ships.
(HN, 2/21/98)

1744 Apr 4, Sarah Inglish was
arrested and convicted at the Old Bailey for stealing a cloak, three
linen aprons and about 7 yards of cloth from a home where she was
babysitting. She was sentenced to transport for a term of 7 years.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T9)

1744 May 11, Elizabeth Robinson
and 2 other women were tried and convicted at the Old Bailey on
charges of stealing 104 imported China oranges from a grocer’s
warehouse with the intent to sell them. She was sentenced to
transport for a term of 7 years. She was pregnant and gave birth on
ship.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T9)

1744 May, Jack Campbell,
captain of the Justicia, transported convicted British criminals to
the US and sold them as indentured servants.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T10)

1744 Jun 15, The warship
Centurion under British Commodore George Anson returned to England
with a treasure valued at £800,000. In 1748 Anson authored "A voyage
Around the World."
(WSJ, 9/4/98, p.W12)

1744 Oct 4, The HMS Victory
sank in the English Channel with at least 900 men aboard. The
175-foot sailing ship had separated from its fleet during a storm.
In 2009 Odyssey Marine Exploration reported finding the vessel about
330 feet beneath the surface and more than 50 miles from where
anybody would have thought it went down.
(AP, 2/1/09)

1744 Rules for cricket set the
wicket to wicket pitch at 22 yards. The 1727 Articles of Agreement
had set the distance at 23 yards.
(www.sca.org.au/laurels/cricket.htm)

1744 This was the era of
London’s gin fever.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T9)

1745 Jan 8, England, Austria,
Saxony and the Netherlands formed an alliance against Russia.
(HN, 1/8/99)

1745 Jan, Handel’s oratorio
"Hercules," written in 1744, premiered at the King’s Theater in
London. The libretto was based on writings by Sophocles and Ovid.
(WSJ, 2/22/06, p.D12)(http://tinyurl.com/gdt6w)

1745 Mar 18, Robert Walpole
(68), 1st British premier (1721-42), died. His children found that
he had run up debts of over £50,000. In 2007 Edward Pearce authored
“The Great Man – Sir Robert Walpole: Scoundrel, Genius and Britain’s
First Prime Minister.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Walpole)(Econ, 2/10/07,
p.89)(Econ, 5/18/13, p.89)

1745 May 11, French forces
defeated an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army at Fontenoy.
(HN, 5/11/98)

1745 Sep 17, Edinburgh was
occupied by Jacobites under Young Pretenders.
(MC, 9/17/01)

1745 Sep 21, A Scottish
Jacobite army commanded by Lord George Murray routed the Royalist
army of General Sir John Cope at Prestonpans. At the Battle at
Preston Pans Bonnie Prince Charles beat the English army.
(HN, 9/21/98)(MC, 9/21/01)

1745 William Hogarth made his
print series "Marriage A-la-Mode" in which he made fun of the new
social mobility.
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.E1)

1745 The Habeas Corpus
Suspension Act 1745 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of
Great Britain passed in 1745, and formally repealed in 1867.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_Corpus_Suspension_Act_1745)

1745-1833 Hannah More, English religious writer:
"The world does not require so much to be informed as reminded."
"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your
eyes off the goal."
(AP, 4/28/97)(AP, 9/9/97)

1746 Apr 16, Bonnie Prince
Charles was defeated at the battle of Culloden, the last pitched
battle fought in Britain. King George II won the battle of Culloden.
Bonnie Prince Charlie used English rifleman and virtually
annihilated the sword-wielding, rebellious, Highlander clans of
Scotland at Culloden. It was the last major land battle fought on
British soil. The Battle of Culloden was a crushing defeat for
Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Highlander clans that backed him.
About 50 English soldiers were killed. The Highlanders lost about
1,500 men.
(PCh, 1992, p.297)(SFC, 6/25/95, p.T-7)(SFC,
12/4/96, p.B1)(SFEC,12/797, p.T4)(SSFC, 7/6/14, p.L6)

1746 Britain’s King George II
banned the kilt in Scotland following the Jacobite rebellion.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.67)

1746 William, the Duke of
Cumberland, led an English military force into Scotland to defeat
the rebels there.
(SFC, 10/14/00, p.B3)

1746 A consortium of London
publishers offered Samuel Johnson (36) a modest sum to compose a
dictionary of the English Language. He promised to do the job in 3
years, but didn’t finish the 1st edition until 1755.
(WSJ, 10/12/05, p.D13)

1747 Jul 2, Marshall Saxe led
the French forces to victory over an Anglo-Dutch force under the
Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Lauffeld.
(HN, 7/2/98)

1747 Dec 9, England and
Netherlands signed a military treaty.
(MC, 12/9/01)

1747 Mark Catesby, English
naturalist, used his 220 watercolors for etchings in his work on the
flora and fauna of North America. The paintings were purchased by
George III in 1768 and preserved in the Royal Library. In 1997 they
were reproduced in the book: "Mark Catesby’s Natural History of
America: Watercolors from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle" by
Henrietta McBurney.
(NH, 6/97, p.12)
1747 The British government
swiftly acted to break Scots' resistance. The wearing of tartan,
teaching Gaelic and even playing the bagpipes were outlawed by the
Act of Proscription.
(Reuters, 2/16/12)
1747 In Britain a tax was
imposed on carriages.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.E3)

1748 British Commodore George
Anson published an account of his trip to China.
(WSJ, 9/4/98, p.W12)

1749 Feb 28, The 1st edition of
"The History of Tom Jones: A foundling" was published. Henry
Fielding (1707-1754) wrote the book and a film based on the novel
was made in 1963. A TV production premiered in 1998.
(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.59)(SFC, 4/2/98, p.E1)(MC,
2/28/02)(ON, 9/03, p.9)

1749 May 19, George II granted
a charter to the Ohio Company to settle Ohio Valley.
(DTnet 5/19/97)

1749 Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
wrote "Tom Jones." A film based on the novel was made in 1963. A TV
production premiered in 1998.
(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.59)(SFC, 4/2/98, p.E1)

1749 Henry Fielding, novelist
and former magistrate, commissioned a half dozen constables known as
the Bow Street Runners. The runners vanished in 1829 with the
creation of the Metropolitan Police, who established their
headquarters at Scotland Yard.
(SFC, 7/14/06, p.A2)

c1750 By this time the British
East India Company had gained virtual control of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)

1751 Feb 16, Thomas Gray's poem
"Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" was 1st published.
(MC, 2/16/02)

1751 Jun 10, The British
Currency Act restricted New England colonies from creating paper
money The colonies had issued paper fiat money known as “bills of
credit" to help pay for the French and Indian Wars. The Act limited
future issuance of bills of credit to certain circumstances (i.e. to
pay public debts, such as taxes, but not private debts, such as to
merchants).
(http://tinyurl.com/pdokes2)

1751 William Hogarth made his
print series "The Four Stages of Cruelty." It illustrated that
indulgence in vice caused corruption and cruelty.
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.E1)

1751 In England Henry Pelham’s
Whig government created the 3% consol. It paid 3% and consolidated
the terms on a variety of previous issues with no maturity date.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.105)

1751-1816 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish-born
statesman and dramatist, spent most of life in England. His plays
included "The Rivals" and "the Critic." He also wrote the comic
opera "The Duenna." In 1998 Fintan O’Toole wrote the biography "A
Traitor’s Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley."
(SFEC, 11/1/98, BR p.4)(WSJ, 1/7/00, p.W4)

1752 Sep 3, The Gregorian
Adjustment to the calendar was put into effect in Great Britain and
the American colonies followed. At this point in time 11 days needed
to be accounted for and Sept. 2 was selected to be followed by Sept.
14.
(K.I.-365D, p.97)(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.5)

1752
Nov 3, Georg Friedrich Handel underwent eye surgery to remove a
cataract by William Bromfield, Surgeon to the Princess of Wales, to
restore his sight. The operation was only a short-term success.
(http://gfhandel.org/)

1752 Nov 20, Thomas Chatterton
(d.1770), English poet (Christabel), was born. His early death
marked him as the "prototype of the fragile poet withered by the
hostility of philistines."
(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A17)(MC, 11/20/01)

1752-1840 Fanny Burney, English writer. Her books
included "Evelina." In 1911 she underwent a mastectomy without
anesthesia. In 2001 Claire Harman authored the biography: "Fanny
Burney."
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.M5)

1753 Jan 11, Hans Sloane
(b.1660), Anglo-Irish physician, naturalist and collector, died in
London. He bequeathed his collection to the British nation, thus
providing the foundation of the British Museum. In 2017 James
Delbourgo authored “Collecting the World: The Life and Curiosity of
Hans Sloane."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Sloane)(Econ
6/10/17, p.82)

1753 Mar 26, Benjamin Thompson
(d.1814), Count Rumford, English physicist and diplomat, was born.
He was a Tory spy in the American Revolution and discovered that
heat equaled motion, which led to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
(WUD, 1994, p.1477)(WSJ, 7/28/98, p.A16)(SS,
3/26/02)

1753 Oct 12, Sir Danvers Osborn
(b.1715), British colonial governor of New York, hanged himself 5
days after arriving in NYC. His wife had recently died and the New
York assembly refused to support him in the style he felt his rank
deserved.
(Econ, 1/12/08,
p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_Osborn)

1753 The British Crown
appointed Benjamin Franklin postmaster of its American colonies.
(Econ, 11/21/15, p.29)
1753 The observation by Dr.
James Lind, British naval surgeon, that fresh fruits and vegetables
could cure scurvy marked the beginning of nutritional epidemiology.
He conducted tests that showed the beneficial effects of lemons and
oranges in treating the disease.
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.4)(ON, 4/01, p.8)

1754 Sep 10, William Bligh, was
born. He was the British naval officer who was the victim of
two mutinies, the most famous on the HMS Bounty which was taken over
by Fletcher Christian in 1789.
(HN, 9/10/98)

1754 Oct 8, Henry Fielding
(b.1707), English lawyer and author, died at 47. He wrote "Tom
Jones" in 1749. A film based on the novel was made in 1963. A TV
production premiered in 1998.
(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.59)(SFC, 4/2/98, p.E1)(MC,
10/8/01)

1754 Thomas Chippendale
published the first English book on furniture designs. He was also
an upholsterer and a cabinetmaker.
(SFC,12/17/97, Z1 p.16)
1754 The Royal Society of Arts
was established in Britain. Its mission statement was: “the
encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, in Great Britain,
by bestowing Rewards, from Time to Time, for such Productions,
Inventions, or Improvements, as shall tend to the Employing of the
Poor, to the Increase of Trade, and to the Riches and Honour of this
Kingdom, by the Promoting Industry and Emulation."
(www.adelphicharter.org/RSA_and_Intellectual_Property.asp)
1754 Thomas Mudge (1715-1794),
English horologist, invented the lever escapement, which became used
in watches ever since.
(Econ, 11/19/11,
p.p.106)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mudge_%28horologist%29)

1755 Feb 20, General Edward
Braddock arrived from Great Britain to assume command of British
forces in America and to lead the Virginia troops against the French
and Indians in the Ohio Valley.
(PCh, 1992, p.303)

1755 Apr 15, Dr. Samuel
Johnson, English writer, published his “Dictionary of the English
Language," a selective English dictionary, after 9 years of work.
The 1st edition had 42,773 entries. In 2005 Henry Hitchings authored
“Defining the World," an account of Johnson’s work.
(WSJ, 9/14/98, p.A30)(HN, 4/15/01)(WSJ, 10/12/05,
p.D13)

1755 Jun 14, In England work
began on a 2nd edition of Dr. Johnson's "Dictionary" for publication
in weekly installments.
(http://www.lib.washington.edu/Preservation/saveabook4.html)

1755 Jun 16, British captured
Fort Beausejour and expelled the Acadians. The Accadians of Nova
Scotia were uprooted by an English governor and forced to leave.
Some 10,000 people moved to destinations like Maine and Louisiana.
Some moved to Iles-de-la-Madeleine off Quebec. The Longfellow story
"Evangeline" is based on this displacement.
(SFEC, 8/22/99, p.T8,9)(SSFC, 6/2/02, p.C7)(MC,
6/16/02)

1755 Jul 5, Sarah Siddons
(d.1831), actress, was born at the Leg of Mutton Inn in Wales. She
rose to fame as a protégé of Richard Brinsley Sheridan at the Drury
Lane Theater and gained fame playing Lady Macbeth in Macbeth.
(HN, 7/5/98)(WSJ, 7/27/99, p.A21)

1755 Jul 6, John Flaxman, the
English sculptor who designed much of Wedgwood's original pottery,
was born.
(MC, 7/6/02)

1755 Jul 8, Britain broke off
diplomatic relations with France as their disputes in the New World
intensified.
(HN, 7/8/98)

1755 Jul 9, General Edward
Braddock was mortally wounded when French and Indian troops ambushed
his force of British regulars and colonial militia, which was on its
way to attack France's Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh). Gen. Braddock's
troops were decimated at Fort Duquesne, where he refused to accept
George Washington's advice on frontier style fighting. British
Gen'l. Braddock gave his bloody sash to George Washington at Fort
Necessity just before he died on Jul 13.
(A & IP, ESM, p.11)(HN, 7/9/98)(WSJ, 1/5/98,
p.A20)

1755 Jul 13, Edward Braddock
(60), British general, died following the July 9, 1755 battle at
Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Out of the 1,400 British
soldiers who were in involved in the battle, 900 of them died.
Future President George Washington carried Braddock from the field
and officiated at his burial ceremony. The general was buried in a
road his men had built. The army then marched over the grave to
obliterate any traces of it and continued to eastern Pennsylvania.
After the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the Braddock Road
remained a main road. In 1804, some workmen discovered human remains
in the road near where Braddock was supposed to have been buried.
The remains were re-interred on a small knoll adjacent to the road.
In 1913 the marker was placed there. Braddock was born in
Perthshire, Scotland, about 1695, the son of Major-General Edward
Braddock (died 1725).
(www.nps.gov/fone/braddock.htm)

1755 Sep 8, British forces
under William Johnson and 250 Indians defeated the French and their
allied Indians at the Battle of Lake George, NY.
(HN, 9/8/98)(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.G6)

1755 Oct 24, A British
expedition against the French held Fort Niagara in Canada ended in
failure.
(HN, 10/24/98)

1755 William Russell Birch
(d.1834), artist, was born in Warwickshire. He settled in
Philadelphia with his son in 1794 and in 1800 published 28 drawn and
engraved hand-colored images of Philadelphia.
(SFC, 5/18/02, p.E6)

1755 The “last specimen" of a
dodo bird, a stuffed but rotted relic, was burned at the Ashmoleum
Museum at Oxford, England. Fortunately, someone removed the head and
the foot of the specimen and saved them. In 1996 by David
Quammen authored The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age
of Extinctions. In 2003 Clara Pinto-Correia authored “Return of the
Crazy Bird." The London Museum of natural History later displayed a
mounted specimen of Raphus cucullatus.
(www.complete-review.com/reviews/divsci/pintocc.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/c9zpyw)

1756 Mar 3, William Godwin
(d.1836), English philosopher, novelist, essayist, political writer
(Caleb Williams), was born. He was the husband of Mary
Wollstonecraft. Wordsworth as a young man was a follower of the
radical philosopher Godwin.
(WUD, 1994, p.606)(WSJ, 6/23/98, p.A18)(SC,
3/3/02)

1756 May 17, After a year and a
half of undeclared war Britain declared war on France, beginning the
French and Indian War. England hoped to conquer Canada. The final
defeat of the French came in 1763 with the British victory at the
Battle of Quebec on the Plains of Abraham.
(HN, 5/17/98)(HNPD,
9/13/98)(http://tinyurl.com/afbze)

1756 May 19, The island of
Minorca, one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean
Sea and a British possession since 1708, fell to the French as the
British garrison at Fort Philip capitulated.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng)

1756 Jun 20, In India rebels
defeated the British army at Calcutta. British soldiers were
imprisoned in a suffocating cell that gained notoriety as the "Black
Hole of Calcutta." Most of them died. The exact circumstances of
this incident, such as the number of prisoners, originally put at
146, are disputed.
(HN, 6/20/98)(AP, 6/20/07)

1756 The British government
gave money to the London Foundling Hospital on condition that it
accept all children under two months old, with no questions asked.
Many unwanted babies soon began to arrive and some three-quarters of
the 15,000 babies that reached the hospital died before the
government ended its support in 1760.
(Econ, 10/17/09, p.99)

1756-1763 The Seven Years War. France and Great
Britain clashed both in Europe and in North America. In 2000
"Crucible of War" by Fred Anderson was published. France, Russia,
Austria, Saxony, Sweden and Spain stood against Britain, Prussia and
Hanover. Britain financed Prussia to block France in Europe while
her manpower was occupied in America.
(V.D.-H.K.p.223)(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.7)(WSJ,
2/10/00, p.A16)

1757 Mar 14, John Byng (52),
British Admiral, was executed by a firing squad on board HMS Monarch
for neglect of duty. Early in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), Byng
was called on to relieve a British fort on the Mediterranean island
of Minorca which was being attacked by French forces. He was sent
with a small, undermanned fleet. Several ship were badly damaged in
subsequent skirmishes with the French, prompting Byng to turn back
to Gibraltar. The fort was eventually forced to capitulate. He was
brought home, court-martialled and executed for breach of Articles
of War. In 2007 his descendants sought a posthumous pardon.
(HN, 3/14/99)(Reuters,
3/15/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng)

1757 Jun 23, Forces of the East
India Company led by Robert Clive (1725-1774) defeated Indians at
Plassey and won control of Bengal. Lord Clive defeated
Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab of Bengal and exacted a payment of $140
million from Moghul ruler Mir Jafar and a Moghul title of nobility
and rights to land around Calcutta. This effectively marked the
beginning of British colonial rule in India. Clive served 2 terms as
the governor of Bengal.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.40)(AP,
6/23/07)

1757 Jul 26, Benjamin Franklin
(51) arrived in London and soon established himself at a house on
Craven Street, which served as home, except for 2 intervals, for the
next 16 years.
(Sm, 3/06, p.98)

1757 Aug 9, English Ft. William
Henry, NY, surrendered to French and Indian troops.
(MC, 8/9/02)

1757 Nov 28, William Blake
(1757-1827), English artist-printer, was born in London. He wrote
"Songs of Innocence" and "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell." His last
book was "Jerusalem," of which he made only five copies. In 1996
Peter Ackroyd published : "Blake: A Biography."
(LSA,Spg,1995,p.17)(WUD,1994,p.155)(WSJ,4/9/96,p.A16)(WSJ,4/2397,p.A16)(HN,
11/28/98)

1757 Benjamin Franklin sailed
for England. He spent almost two decades there as colonial agent, a
combination lobbyist, ambassador, and banker, for Pennsylvania and,
eventually Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. He lived in London
at 36 Craven St.
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. A12)(USAT, 9/22/03, p.16A)

1758 Jun 23, British and
Hanoverian armies defeated the French at Krefeld in Germany.
(HN, 6/23/98)

1758 Jul 8, During the French
and Indian War a British attack on Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga, New
York, was foiled by the French. Some 3,500 Frenchmen defeated the
British army of 15,000, which lost 2,000 men.
(HN, 7/8/98)(AH, 10/02, p.27)

1758 Sep 18, James Abercromby
[was] replaced as supreme commander of British forces after his
defeat by French commander, the Marquis of Montcalm, at Fort
Ticonderoga during the French and Indian War.
(HN, 9/18/98)

1758 Sep 29, Horatio Nelson
(d.1805), British naval commander who defeated the French and her
allies on numerous occasions during the age of Napoleon, was born in
Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk. He was made post-captain at the young age
of 21. Nelson died at the moment of his greatest victory at the
Battle of Trafalgar. Although a national hero, he displayed common
human frailty. His colorful private life, coupled with his genius
and daring as a naval commander, seem to make the Nelson story
irresistible to every generation.
(AP, 9/29/97)(HN, 9/29/98)(HNQ, 6/3/01)

1759 Jan 15, The British Museum
opened in Montagu House, on the site of the current building, and
proclaimed itself as the world’s first independent national museum.
Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries was
largely a result of expanding British colonization and has resulted
in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the
British Museum of Natural History in South Kensington in 1881 (it is
nowadays simply called the Natural History Museum, and is separate
and independent).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museum)(Econ, 12/21/13, SR
p.4)

1759 Apr 23, British seized
Basse-Terre and Guadeloupe in the Antilies from France.
(HN, 4/23/99)

1759 Apr 27, Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin (d.1797), English writer, feminist (Female
Reader), was born. "The mind will ever be unstable that has only
prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive
fury when there are no barriers to break its force."
(AP, 11/10/97)(MC, 4/27/02)

1759 May 1, British fleet
occupied Guadeloupe, in the West Indies. [see Apr 23]
(MC, 5/1/02)

1759 May 28, William Pitt the
Younger, prime minister of England from 1783-1801, was born. He has
been considered England's greatest prime minister.
(HN, 5/28/99)

1759 Jul 25, British forces
defeated a French army at Fort Niagara in Canada. During their 7
Years' War.
(HN, 7/25/98)(SC, 7/25/02)

1759 Jul 26, The French
relinquished Fort Carillon in New York, to the British under General
Jeffrey Amherst. The British changed the name to Fort Ticonderoga,
from the Iroquois word Cheonderoga (land between the waters).
(HN, 7/26/98)(AH, 10/02, p.26)

1759 Aug 1, British and
Hanoverian armies defeated the French at the Battle of Minden,
Germany. The marquis de Lafayette was killed by a British cannonball
and his son, Gilbert du Motier (2), inherited the title. In 1777
Lafayette joined the American Continental Army.
(HN, 8/1/98)(ON, 2/09, p.1)

1759 Aug 18, The French fleet
was destroyed by the British under "Old Dreadnought" Boscawen at the
battle of Lagos Bay.
(HN, 8/18/98)

1759 Aug 24, William
Wilberforce (d.1833), was born in Hull, Yorkshire, England. He
became best known for his efforts relating to the abolition of
slavery in the British Empire.
(www.nndb.com/people/824/000049677/)(HNQ,
12/6/02)

1759 Sep 13, During the final
French and Indian War, the Battle of Quebec [Canada] was fought.
British Gen. James Wolfe’s army defeated Commander Louis Joseph de
Montcalm’s French forces on the Plains of Abraham overlooking Quebec
City. "Measured by the numbers engaged," wrote historian Francis
Parkman, the Battle of Quebec "was but a heavy skirmish; measured by
results, it was one of the great battles of the world." Fought on
the rainy morning of September 13, 1759, the armies of England and
France clashed outside the walls of Quebec City and altered the
balance of power of an entire continent. The battle on the Plains of
Abraham lasted less than half an hour. By the time the rain had
washed away the blood, Quebec had surrendered to the British. Four
years later, the Treaty of Paris gave England sole dominion over
most of the land that Quebec City had governed, from Cape Breton
Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Mississippi River.
(CFA, '96, p.54)(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.7)(AP,
9/13/97)(HNQ, 9/8/98)

1759 Sep 18, Quebec surrendered
to the British after a battle which saw the deaths of both James
Wolfe and Louis Montcalm, the British and French commanders.
(AP, 9/18/97)(HN, 9/18/98)

1759 Samuel Johnson
(1709-1784), English lexicographer, authored his novel “History of
Rasselas," on the elusive nature of happiness.
(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A23)
1759 John Smeaton built the
Eddystone Lighthouse near Plymouth, England. It was the 3rd one
erected at the site over 60 years.
(WSJ, 6/27/00, p.A28)(ON, 5/06, p.5)
1759 Dr. Samuel Johnson
denounced advertisements as over exaggerated and false.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1759 Britain triumphed over
France in the naval victory at Quiberon Bay.
(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1759 A group of 9 English
merchants launched a new ironworks in Dowlais, Wales, using the
regions abundant coal. It was managed from its earliest years by the
Guest family. In 1900 it was purchased by a nuts and bolts company
run by Arthur Keen. Shortly afterwards Keen bought Nettlefolds, a
maker of screws and fasteners. By 1902 the firm, known as Guest,
Keen & Nettlefolds Ltd., was the world's largest producer of
nails. In 1986 “Guest Keen and Nettlefolds" became GKN. In 1987
Edgar Jones authored "A History of GKN." Volume 2 was published in
1990. By 2004 GKN PLC had become a major auto parts supplier and had
a new aerospace division.
(WSJ, 3/16/04, p.A1,8)(Econ, 6/9/12, p.61)
1759 Josiah Wedgwood opened his
first factory in Stoke-on-Trent, central England. It began making
bone china in the 19th century.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.G6)(AP, 1/4/09)

1760 Apr 16, In England
Laurence, 4th Earl Ferrers, was executed for the murder of his
steward. [see May 5]
(MC, 4/16/02)

1760 Apr 28, French forces
besieging Quebec defeated the British in the second battle on the
Plains of Abraham.
(HN, 4/28/98)

1760 May 5, The fourth Earl
Ferrers was driven from the Tower of London to be hanged as a felon,
the last English nobleman to be executed this way.
(HN, 5/5/99)

1760 Sep 8, The French
surrendered the city of Montreal to the British. [see Sep 18, 1759]
(HN, 9/8/98)

1760 Oct 25, George II
(August), king of Great-Britain (1727-60), died at 76.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1760 Oct 25, King George III of
Britain was crowned. He succeeded his late grandfather, George II
and ruled until 1820. With the rule of George III the civil list
(government officers, judges, ambassadors and royal staff) was paid
by the Parliament in return for the king's surrender of the
hereditary revenues of the crown.
(AHD, 1971, p.552)(AP, 10/25/97)(HN, 10/25/01)

1761 Apr 17, Thomas Bayes
(b.1702), English theologian and mathematician, died. He established
a mathematical basis for probability inference based on sparse data.
Sampling from a large population (the frequentist school) came to
dominate the field in the modern era. In 2006 researchers suggested
that the human brain might work in a Bayesian manner drawing strong
inferences from sparse data.
(www.britannica.com)(Econ, 1/7/06, p.70)

1761 Sep 21, King George III of
England was crowned. George was German and had been Elector of
Hanover. Coincidentally, the composer Handel, who was working in
London when King George was crowned, had gone to London after
skipping out on his last job...working for George in Hanover.
Fortunately for Handel, King George forgave him.
(MC, 9/21/01)

1761 In western North Carolina
British soldiers razed Kituwha, the heart of the Cherokee Nation.
Punitive raids here were repeated in 1776.
(Arch, 9/02, p.70)

1762 Barings PLC, a British
banking firm was founded [1763 also given]. It later financed the
Louisiana Purchase [1803] and provided economic counseling to Queen
Elizabeth II. The operation went bust in 1995.
(WSJ, 2/27/95, p.A-10)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)

1763 Feb 10, Britain, Spain and
France signed the Treaty of Paris ending the French-Indian War.
France ceded Canada to England and gave up all her territories in
the New World except New Orleans and a few scattered islands. France
retained the sugar colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe.
(HN, 2/10/97)(AP, 2/10/97)(AP, 2/10/08)(SSFC,
7/6/14, p.L5)

1763 Apr 23, John Wilkes
published issue No. 45 of his North Briton newspaper. His editorial
denounced King George III’s praise for the recently concluded Treaty
of Paris. His attacks on the government upset King George III
and led to Wilkes’ prosecution for seditious libel.
(www.eastlondonhistory.com/wilkes.htm)(ON, 12/11,
p.7)

1763 Apr 30, Britain’s King
George II felt personally insulted and ordered general warrants to
be issued for the arrest of John Wilkes, member of Parliament, and
the publishers of The North Briton. Forty-nine people, including
Wilkes, were arrested under the warrants. At his court hearing the
Lord Chief Justice ruled that as an MP, Wilkes was protected by
privilege from arrest on a charge of libel.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes)(ON,
12/11, p.7)

1763 May 16, The English
lexicographer, author and wit Samuel Johnson first met his future
biographer, James Boswell.
(AP, 5/16/97)

1763 Sep 26, English poet John
Byrom (b.1692) died. The words "Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" made
their first appearance in print in "one of the most celebrated and
most frequently quoted epigrams," satirizing the disagreements
between George Frideric Handel and Giovanni Battista Bononcini,
written by John Byrom. A nursery rhyme published in 1805 included
the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee as did Lewis Carroll’s
“Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There"
(1871).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweedledum_and_Tweedledee)

1763 Oct 7, George III of Great
Britain issued a royal proclamation reserving for the crown the
right to acquire land from western tribes. This closed lands in
North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlement and
ended the acquisition efforts of colonial land syndicates. The Royal
Proclamation of 1763 guaranteed Indian rights to land and
self-government.
(www.bloorstreet.com/200block/rp1763.htm)(SSFC,
8/29/04, p.M5)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.46)

1763 Nov 16, John Wilkes
(b.1725), English journalist, MP, and friend of American Colonies,
was injured in duel. His protest of the Treaty of Paris of 1763 had
appeared in the April 23 issue of North Briton No. 45.
(ON, 12/11, p.8)

1763 Dec 6, The British
government case against journalist John Wilkes was decided in favor
of Wilkes and a general warrant for his arrest was declared illegal.
(ON, 12/11, p.8)

1763 Mary Saunders (16), a
servant, killed her boss with a cleaver. In 2001 the novel
"Slammerkin" by Emma Donoghue was based on this event.
(WSJ, 6/22/01, p.W12)
1763 British forces, under
orders from Sir Jeffrey Amherst (1717-1797), Colonial Gov. of
Virginia (1759-1768), distributed smallpox-infected blankets among
American Indians in the 1st known case of its use as a biological
weapon.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffery_Amherst,_1st_Baron_Amherst)(SFC,
10/19/01, p.A17)
1763 France formally ceded
possession of Dominica to Great Britain.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominica)

1764 Jan 20, John Wilkes
was expelled from the English House of Commons. In February he was
found guilty, in absentia, of seditious libel (for the North Briton)
and of obscene and impious libel (for Essay on Woman, a parody on
Pope which he had co-written with Thomas Potter years before,
intended for a select group of friends).
(www.jamesboswell.info/biography/john-wilkes-essay-women-wilkes-and-liberty)

1765 Mar 22, Britain enacted
the Stamp Act to raise money from the American Colonies. This was
the first direct British tax on the colonists. The Act was repealed
the following year. The tax covered just about everything produced
by the American colonists and began the decade of crisis that led to
the American Revolution. The Stamp Act taxed the legal documents of
the American colonists and infuriated John Adams.
(AP, 3/22/97)(HN, 3/22/97)(A&IP, p.13,18)

1765 Nov 23, Frederick County,
Md., became the first colonial entity to repudiate the British Stamp
Act.
(AP, 11/23/07)

1765 James Smithson (d.1829),
English scientist, was born. He later bequeathed his entire estate
to the United States to found an establishment for the increase and
diffusion of knowledge, to be named the Smithsonian Institution.
Smithson had the mineral smithsonite (carbonate of zinc) named for
him. Alexander Graham Bell, scientist and inventor, escorted the
remains of James Smithson, founder of the Smithsonian Institution,
to the United States in 1904 for interment in the original
Smithsonian building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Smithson)
1765 Bishop Thomas Percy, the
first true collector of English ballads, published “Reliques of
Ancient English Poetry."
(Econ, 8/19/17, p.71)
1765 Joseph Priestley
(1733-1804), English chemist and natural philosopher, created the
innovation of the first timeline charts, in which individual bars
were used to visualize the life span of a person, and the whole can
be used to compare the life spans of multiple persons. "Priestley's
timelines proved a commercial success and a popular sensation, and
went through dozens of editions".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Playfair)
c1765 A group of men began meeting at one
another’s houses in Birmingham, England, and helped develop over
time new technologies that helped transform England to an industrial
power; they included Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, Matthew
Boulton, James Watt, and Joseph Priestley. In 2002 Jenny Uglow
authored "The Lunar Men," and account of their work.
(WSJ, 11/14/02, p.D6)
1765 John Taylor and Sampson
Lloyd established a bank in Birmingham that grew to become Britain’s
Lloyds TSB.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.105)
1765 Scotsman James Watt
further refined Thomas Newcomen’s piston system steam engine
innovation by adding a separate condenser. Watt took out a patent on
his improved engine in 1769.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)

1766 Jan 1, James Francis
Edward Stuart (b.1688), son of James III, died. The English prince
was known as the Old Pretender.
(HN, 1/1/99)(WUD, 1994 ed., p.1410)

1766 Jan, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, philosopher and writer, arrived in London with Theresa
Levasseur, his governess and mistress. He was able to receive a
modest pension from George III.
(WSJ, 2/18/97, p.A18)

1766 Dec 5, London auctioneers
Christie's held their 1st sale. The British auction house Christie’s
was sold in 1998 to Francois Pinault, a French businessman and art
collector.
(HT, 3/97, p.74)(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W12)(WSJ,
5/19/98, p.B10)(MC, 12/5/01)

1766 In London the first paved
sidewalk was laid at Westminster.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.3)

1766-1841 Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin. He
arranged for the 5th century BCE frieze sculpture of the Greek
Parthenon, supposedly made under Phidias, to be sold to the British
Museum for 35,000 pounds. This was arranged when Greece was under
Ottoman rule. The marbles, originally painted, were unwittingly
cleaned in the 1930s and their original patina removed.
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.A12)(WUD, 1994, p.463)

1767 Dec 8, In a London,
England, cemetery: Ann Mann: Here lies Ann Mann, Who lived an old
maid But died an old Mann.
(e-mail, 5/16/99)

1767 Robert Clive returned from
India to England with a huge fortune and was accused of
embezzlement.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1767 English slave traders
captured 2 native nobles, Little Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin
Robin John on the west coast of Africa and took them in chains to
Dominica. They soon escaped but were resold into slavery in
Virginia. Some 4 years later they were taken to England and again
resold and returned to Virginia. They later made it back to their
home on the Calabar River (SE Nigeria) and became slave merchants
themselves. In 2004 Randy J. Sparks authored “The Princes of
Calabar."
(WSJ, 5/21/04, p.W4)
1767 George Hodgeson, British
entrepreneur, cut a deal with the East India Company to start
providing beer to the British Civil-service and merchant classes in
the India colonies. He doubled the hop content to help preserve the
beer on its long voyage.
(WSJ, 8/13/04, p.W6)
1767 Kitty Fisher, a prominent
British courtesan, died.
(Econ, 2/11/12,
p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Fisher)

1767-1849 Maria Edgeworth, English novelist: "A
straight line is the shortest in morals as in mathematics."
(AP, 6/25/99)

1768 Jan 9, English cavalry
sergeant Philip Astley staged the first modern circus, performing
elaborate feats on the backs of horses racing around a ring.
(MC, 1/9/02)

1768 Apr 27, John Wilkes
(b.1725), English journalist, was arrested for seditious libel
following his February return from exile in Europe.
(ON, 12/11, p.8)

1768 May 10, The imprisonment
of the journalist John Wilkes as an outlaw provoked violence in
London. Wilkes had returned to parliament as a member for Middlesex.
The “Massacre of St. George’s Fields" left 6 people dead as soldiers
fired on a mob cheering Wilkes.
(HN, 5/10/99)(ON, 12/11, p.9)

1768 Aug 26, Capt James Cook
departed from Plymouth with Endeavour to the Pacific Ocean. Daniel
Solander and Joseph Banks accompanied Cook to catalog plants and
animals of Australia and New Zealand on the 3-year journey.
(www.artstor.org/what-is-artstor/w-html/col-endeavour-london.shtml)(SSFC,
4/19/09, Books p.J7)

1768 Oct 1, English troops
under general Gage landed in Boston.
(MC, 10/1/01)

1768 The 1st four day royal
meeting was held at the Royal Ascot track west of London. Horse
racing there had begun in 1711.
(SFC, 6/21/06,
p.A2)(www.icons.org.uk/nom/nominations/royal-ascot)

1768 Seamen in London formed a
union and imposed a port strike that virtually halted all shipping.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R27)
1768 British academicians
formed the Royal Academy of Arts. In 2006 James Fenton authored
“School of Genius: A History of the Royal Academy of Arts."
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.81)
c1768 William Smellie, a young
Edinburgh botanist, was given the task of editing the first edition
of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
(NH, 5/96, p.3)(WSJ, 4/22/99, A1)
1768 The Massachusetts
colonial assembly voted 92-17 to refuse British demands for repeal
of the Massachusetts Circular Letter, which had been penned by
Samuel Adams in protest of the Townshend Revenue Act. Silversmith
and legendary Patriot Paul Revere later crafted his Liberty Bowl to
commemorate the two "Patriotic numbers" 92 and 45. The bowl, which
weighed 45 ounces and held 45 gills, was inscribed with
"Ninety-Two." The numbers had special significance to American
Patriots, representing resistance to British taxation and the No. 45
issue of Wilkes’ North Briton newspaper.
(www.mfa.org/collections/object/39072)

1768-1771 Capt. James Cook charted the coasts of
both the north and south islands of New Zealand and Australia. Cook
made his historic voyages in colliers, slow but strong ships
designed primarily for carrying coal. His ship was named the
Endeavour. Cook's voyage to Australia kept a botanical record called
the Banks Florilegium. The 738 original plates commissioned by Sir
Joseph Banks was not printed until a 100 set limited edition in
1989.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A24)

1769 Feb 4, Journalist John
Wilkes was expelled from the British Parliament.
(ON, 12/11, p.9)

1769 Mar 16, Journalist John
Wilkes was elected unopposed to his former seat in the British
Parliament.
(ON, 12/11, p.9)

1769 May 1,
Arthur Wellsley, Duke of Wellington "Iron Duke," was born. He
defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and later became the British prime
minister (1828-30). [see Apr 24]
(HN, 5/1/99)(MC, 5/1/02)

1769 Construction of Britain’s
Kew Observatory, built within the Old Deer Park of the former
Richmond Palace in Richmond, Surrey, was completed. It was an
astronomical and terrestrial magnetic observatory founded by King
George III.
(ON, 4/12,
p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kew_Observatory)
1769 The Swinford toll bridge
in Oxfordshire was built across the River Thames. In 2009 it was up
for auction offering buyers a tax-free investment with a bit of
historic charm. It has been free of income tax since the 18th
century, when Parliament granted ownership of the bridge and its
tolls to the Earl of Abingdon and "to his heirs and assignees for
ever."
(AP, 11/18/09)

1770 March 5, British troops
taunted by a crowd of colonists fired on an unruly mob in Boston and
killed five citizens in what came to be known as the Boston
Massacre. The fracas between a few angry Boston men and one British
sentry ended with five men dead or dying in the icy street corner of
King Street and Shrimton’s Lane. Captain Thomas Preston did not
order the eight British soldiers under his command to fire into the
hostile crowd. The nervous soldiers claimed to be confused by shouts
of "Why do you not fire?" coming from all sides. Versions of the
event rapidly circulated through the colonies, bolstering public
support for the Patriot cause. The British Captain Preston and seven
soldiers were defended by John Adams. The captain and five of the
soldiers were acquitted, the other two soldiers were found guilty of
manslaughter and were branded on the hand with a hot iron. The first
colonist killed in the American Revolution was the former slave,
Crispus Attucks, shot by the British at the Boston Massacre. The
event was later illustrated by Boston engraver Paul Revere.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(A&IP, Miers, p.18)(SFC,
12/18/96, p.A25)(AP, 3/5/98)(HN, 3/5/98)(HNPD, 3/5/99)(WSJ, 4/12/08,
p.W14)

1770 Apr 7, William Wordsworth,
English poet laureate, was born. He wrote "The Prelude" and "Lyrical
Ballads." In 1998 Kenneth R. Johnston published "The Hidden
Wordsworth: Poet, Lover, Rebel, Spy." The biography covered the
first 30 years of the poet’s life. In 1896 Emile Legouis also
published a biography of the poet’s youth. The poet was responsible
for such phrases as: "love of nature," "love of man," and "emotion
recollected in tranquility."
(V.D.-H.K.p.230) (WSJ, 6/23/98, p.A18)(SFEC,
8/23/98, BR p.5)(HN, 4/7/99)

1770 George Stubbs, Britain’s
finest painter of animals, did a portrait of the Duke of Richmond’s
imported yearling bull moose. It was commissioned by anatomist
William Hunter (1718-1783) to see if the moose was related to the
fossil Irish giant deer.
(NH, 8/96, p.17)
1770 In India a famine wiped
out a third of the population of Bengal. This hardened opinion
against the British East India Company.
(Econ, 12/17/11, p.111)

1771 May 14, Robert Owen,
English factory owner, socialist, was born.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1771 May 14, Thomas Wedgwood,
English physicist, was born. He is acknowledged as the first
photographer.
(HN, 5/14/99)

1772 Jun 9, The 1st naval
attack of Revolutionary War took place when residents of Providence,
RI., stormed the British revenue cutter HMS Gaspee, burned it to the
waterline and shot the captain.
(WSJ, 6/24/03, p.A1)

1772 Jun 22, Slavery was in
effect outlawed in England by Chief Justice William Murray, First
Earl of Mansfield, following the trial of James Somersett. In 2005
Steven Wise authored “Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark
Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somersett%27s_Case)(Econ, 2/5/05,
p.76)(ON, 12/08, p.9)

1772 Jul 13, Capt James Cook
began a 2nd trip on the ship Resolution to South Seas.
(MC, 7/13/02)

1772 Oct 21, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (d.1834), English poet and author, was born. His work
included "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1797) and "Kubla Khan."
(AP, 9/12/97)(HN, 10/21/00)

1772 Shoelaces were invented in
England.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.B4)

1772-1823 David Ricardo, English Economist and
stockbroker. He postulated that landlords become rich at the expense
of society.
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)

1773 Apr 6, James Mill
(d.1836), English philosopher, historian (Hist of British India) and
economist, was born in Scotland.
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(WUD, 1994 p.909)(MC,
4/6/02)

1773 Dec 16, Some 50-60 "Sons
of Liberty" of revolutionary Samuel Adams disguised as Mohawks
defied the 3 cents per pound tax on tea boarded a British East
India Tea Company ship and dumped more than 300 chests of British
tea into the Boston Harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea
Party. Parliament had passed the 1773 Tea Act not to regulate trade
or make the colonies pay their own administrative costs, but to save
the nearly bankrupt British East India Tea Company. The Tea Act gave
the company a monopoly over the American tea trade and authorized
the sale of 17 million pounds of tea in America at prices cheaper
than smuggled Dutch tea. In spite of the savings, Americans would
not accept what they considered to be taxation without
representation. Overreacting to the Boston Tea Party, the British
attempted to punish Boston and the whole colony of Massachusetts
with the Intolerable Acts of 1774--another in the series of events
that ultimately led to American independence. A bill for the tea
($196) was paid Sep 30, 1961.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(A&IP, Miers,
p.18)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(AP, 12/16/97) (HNPD, 12/16/98)(MC,
9/30/01)

1773 Dec 27, George Cayley,
founder of the science of aerodynamics, was born in England.
(MC, 12/27/01)

1773 Thomas Day, English
abolitionist, wrote a poem with his friend John Bicknell called “The
Dying Negro."
(Econ, 2/16/13, p.83)
1773 John Harrison (1693-1776)
received a monetary award in the amount of £8,750 from the British
Parliament for his achievements regarding the invention of the
marine chronometer solving the problem of establishing the East-West
position or longitude of a ship at sea. He never received the
official award, proclaimed in 1714, which was never awarded to
anyone.
(www.surveyhistory.org/john_harrison%27s_timepiece1.htm)(Econ,
5/1/10, p.80)
1773 Sir Robert Clive was
acquitted of embezzlement.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1773 The Samuel Deacon &
Co. ad agency opened in London.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1773 A group of English traders
broke away from Jonathan's coffee house and moved to a new building.
This became the forerunner of the London Stock Exchange (f.1801).
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.89)

1773-1785 Warren Hastings served as the British
governor-general of India.
(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)

1774 Feb 22, English House of
Lords ruled that authors do not have perpetual copyright.
(MC, 2/22/02)

1774 May 19, Ann Lee and eight
Shakers sailed from Liverpool to New York. The religious group
originated in Quakerism and fled England due to religious
persecution. (They become the first conscientious objectors on
religious grounds and were jailed during the American Revolution in
1776.) In 1998 Suzanne Skees published "god Among the Shakers."
(DTnet 5/19/97)(WSJ, 3/26/98, p.W10)

1774 May 20, The British
Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for
their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts closed the port
of Boston. [see Mar 28]
(HN, 5/20/99)

1774 Nov 22, British
officer and privateer Sir Robert Clive (b.1725), considered by some
as the richest man ever, committed suicide.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Clive)(WSJ,
1/11/99, p.R8)

1774 The Privy Council
subjected Ben Franklin to a ritual of humiliation for distributing
the private letters of Gov. Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts.
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. A12)

1774 Nicholas Cresswell,
Englishman, arrived in the US and spent 3 years traveling and
meeting prominent Americans of the time including George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson and British Gen. William Howe. Cresswell kept a
journal and in 2009 it was published as “A Man Apart: The Journal of
Nicholas Cresswell 1774-1781."
(WSJ, 4/11/09, p.W9)

1774 English journalist John
Wilkes (1725-1797 was elected Lord Mayor of London.
(ON, 12/11,
p.9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes)
1774 Georgiana Spencer
(1757-1806) married William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire.
Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt of Princess Diana.
(WSJ, 1/7/00, p.W4)
1774 Ann Lee, a Manchester
Quaker, left for the New World and founded the Shaker movement. The
Shakers had originated in England as the United Society of Believers
in Christ’s Second Appearance.
(SFC, 6/21/01, p.C2)(Econ, 2/20/15, p.74)
1774 Britain banned tontines, a
form of life insurance , under the Life Assurance
Act 1774, also known as the Gambling Act 1774.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Assurance_Act_1774)(Econ
6/17/17, p.69)

1774 A Scottish printer finally
overturned a copyright monopoly that had allowed English booksellers
to lock up the works of Shakespeare and other authors for nearly 2
centuries.
(WSJ, 3/26/04, p.W6)

1774-1852 George Chinnery, watercolorist. He lived
and worked in Hong Kong, Macao and Canton.
(Hem., 3/97, p.92)

1775 Mar 22, British statesman
Edmund Burke made a speech in the House of Commons, urging the
government to adopt a policy of reconciliation with America.
(AP, 3/22/99)

1775 April 19, The American
Revolutionary War began with the Battle of Lexington-Concord in the
US. The war between the British and the American colonists began.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(V.D.-H.K.p.224)(AP, 4/19/97)

1775 May 20, North Carolina
became the first colony to declare its independence. Citizens of
Mecklenburg County, NC, declared independence from Britain.
(HN, 5/20/98)(MC, 5/20/02)

1775 Jun 12, In the 1st naval
battle of Revolution the US ship Unity captured the British ship
Margaretta.
(MC, 6/12/02)

1775 Jun 17, The Battle of
Bunker Hill was actually fought on Breed’s Hill near Boston. It
lasted less than 2 hours and was the deadliest of the Revolutionary
War. The British captured the hill on their third attempt but
suffered over 1,000 casualties vs. about 400-600 for the Americans.
Patriotic hero Dr. Joseph Warren died in the battle. Patriot General
William Prescott allegedly told his men, "Don't one of you fire
until you see the whites of their eyes!" British casualties were
estimated at 226 dead and 828 wounded, while American casualties
were estimated at 140 dead and 301 wounded.
(SFC, 4/2/97, Z1 p.6)(AP, 6/17/98)(HNQ,
4/1/99)(AH, 10/07, p.72)

1775 Jul 5, The Olive Branch
Petition was adopted by the Continental Congress and professed the
attachment of the American people to George III. It expressed hope
for the restoration of harmony and begged the king to prevent
further hostile actions against the colonies. The following day,
Congress passed a resolution written by Thomas Jefferson and John
Dickinson, a "Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up
Arms," which rejected independence but asserted that Americans were
ready to die rather than be enslaved. King George refused to receive
the Olive Branch Petition on August 23 and proclaimed the American
colonies to be in open rebellion.
(HNQ, 7/2/99)

1775 Jul 30, Captain Cook
returned to England.
(MC, 7/30/02)

1775 Aug 23, Britain's King
George III refused the American colonies' offer of peace and
proclaimed the American colonies in a state of "open and avowed
rebellion."
(HN, 8/23/98)(AP, 8/23/07)

1775 Dec 16, Jane Austin
(d.1817), novelist, was born in [Steventon] Hampshire, England, as
the 6th of 7 children [7th of 8]. Her well-educated parents
encouraged reading and writing. Her work included "Sense and
Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and Prejudice" (1812), "Mansfield Park"
(1814) "Lady Susan" and "Emma" (1815). Her books "Persuasion" (1817)
and "Northanger Abbey" were published posthumously. Austin’s witty,
well-constructed stories about realistic middle-class characters
challenged the limits of women writers. Although she called herself
a "merely domestic" novelist, she greatly influenced the development
of the modern novel. Austin’s most famous works were published
between 1811 and 1816, shortly before she died in July 1817. Later
in the 19th century critics appreciated Austin’s writing more, and
her novels remain popular today--for both literary critics and
moviegoers, as they are widely read and adapted for the silver
screen. "One does not love a place the less for having suffered in
it unless it has all been suffering, nothing but suffering." Two
biographies were published in 1997 with the same title: "Jane
Austen: A Life," one by Calire Tomalin and the other by David Nokes.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, BR p.10)(Hem., 5/97, p.102)(AP,
5/31/97)(SFEC, 11/9/97, BR p.4)(WSJ, 11/17/97, p.A24)(HN,
12/16/98)(HNPD, 12/18/98)

1775 Dec 31, The British
repulsed an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery
and Benedict Arnold at Quebec; Montgomery was killed.
(AP, 12/31/97)

1775 Joseph Priestley published
his book “Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air."
He refuted some opinions of Lavoisier, who had recently named oxygen
based on experiments modeled after Priestley’s work. In 1777 German
chemist Karl Wilhelm Schele verified that he had independently
isolated oxygen in 1772.
(www.woodrow.org/teachers/chemistry/institutes/1992/Priestley.html)(ON,
10/05, p.2)

1775 Richard Brinsley
Sheridan’s wrote "The Duenna." In 1940 Prokofiev composed the opera
"Betrothal in a Monastery," based on Sheridan’s work. The Prokofiev
work had its premiere in Prague.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A21)(SFC, 11/25/98, p.D1)

1775-1781 The Royal Welch Fusiliers, a British
regiment, was among the British troops that fought in the American
Revolution during this period. In 2007 mark Urban authored
“Fusiliers: the Saga of a British Redcoat Regiment in the American
Revolution.
(WSJ, 11/15/07, p.D6)

1776 Jan 10, Thomas Paine
(1737-1809), British émigré and propagandist, anonymously published
"Common Sense," a scathing attack on King George III's reign over
the colonies and a call for complete independence. It sold some
120,000 copies in just a few months, greatly affecting public
sentiment and the deliberations of the Continental Congress leading
up to the Declaration of Independence. He advocated an immediate
declaration of independence from Britain. An instant bestseller in
both the colonies and in Britain, Paine baldly stated that King
George III was a tyrant and that Americans should shed any
sentimental attachment to the monarchy. America, he argued, had a
moral obligation to reject monarchy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine)(AP,
1/10/98)

1776 Feb 17, Edward Gibbon
(1737-1794), English historian, published his 1st volume of "The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." He completed
the 6-volume classic in 1788.
(WUD, 1994 p.596)(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.P6)

1776 Mar 17, British forces
evacuated Boston to Nova Scotia during the Revolutionary War. In
some of the bloodiest fighting of the Revolutionary War, American
and French troops failed to take Savannah.
(HN, 3/17/98)

1776 Apr 12, North Carolina's
Fourth Provincial Congress adopted the Halifax Resolves, which
authorized the colony's delegates to the Continental Congress to
support independence from Britain.
(AP, 4/12/07)

1776 Jul 4, The Continental
Congress approved adoption of the amended Declaration of
Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson and signed by John
Hancock--President of the Continental Congress--and Charles Thomson,
Congress secretary, without dissent. However, the New York
delegation abstained as directed by the New York Provisional
Congress. On July 9, the New York Congress voted to endorse the
declaration. On July 19, Congress then resolved to have the
"Unanimous Declaration" inscribed on parchment for the signature of
the delegates. Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence,
two went on to become presidents of the United States, John Adams
and Thomas Jefferson.
(HNQ, 7/4/98)(AP, 7/4/97)(HN, 7/4/98)(HNQ,
5/15/99)
1776 Jul 4, The
Declaration of Independence was signed by president of Congress John
Hancock and secretary Charles Thomson. John Hancock said, "There, I
guess King George will be able to read that." referring to his
signature on the Declaration of Independence. Other signers later
included Benjamin Rush and Robert Morris. Of the 56 signers of the
Declaration of Independence, eight were born outside North America.
(SFC,12/19/97,p.B6)(SFC,2/9/98, p.A19)(HNQ,
7/4/99)(HNQ, 2/1/00)(HNQ, 9/10/00)

1776 Aug 27, The Americans were
defeated by the British at the Battle of Long Island, New York.
(HN, 8/27/98)

1776 Sep 11, An American
delegation consisting of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward
Rutledge met with British Admiral Richard Lord Howe to discuss terms
upon which reconciliation between Britain and the colonies might be
based. The talks were unsuccessful. In 2003 Barnet Schecter authored
“The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American
Revolution."
(AH, 6/03,
p.61)(www.patriotresource.com/people/howe/page2.html)

1776 Sep 15, British forces
occupied New York City during the American Revolution. British
forces captured Kip's Bay, Manhattan, during the American
Revolution.
(AP, 9/15/97)(HN, 9/15/99)

1776 Sep 22, Nathan Hale
was hanged as a spy by the British during the Revolutionary War.
(AP, 9/22/97)

1776 Oct 11, The first naval
battle of Lake Champlain was fought during the American Revolution.
American forces led by Gen. Benedict Arnold suffered heavy losses,
but managed to stall the British.
(AP, 10/11/97)

1776 Nov 30, Captain Cook began
his 3rd and last trip to the Pacific South Seas.
(MC, 11/30/01)

1776 Dec 26, The British
suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the
Revolutionary War. After crossing the Delaware River into New
Jersey, George Washington led an attack on Hessian mercenaries and
took 900 men prisoner.
(AP, 12/26/97)(HN, 12/26/98)

1776 Sir William Chambers began
building Somerset House on the site of a palace built by Edward
Seymour, Protector Somerset, in the 1540s. It was designed to house
public offices and the 3 learned societies: the Royal Academy of
Arts, the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. In 2000 the
royal society of Literature was housed there.
(WSJ, 6/15/00, p.A24)

1776-1781 It is estimated that 30,000 Hessian
soldiers fought for the British during the American Revolution.
After Russia refused to provide troops for the war, the German
states of Brunswick, Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Hanau, Waldeck,
Anspach-Bayreuth and Anhalt-Zerbst supplied mercenary soldiers,
collectively referred to as Hessians. Seven thousand Hessians died
in the war and another 5,000 deserted and settled in America. The
British paid the German rulers for each soldier sent to North
America and an additional sum for each killed.
(HNQ, 3/31/99)

1777 Jan 3, Gen. George
Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of
Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 1/3/98)

1777 May 1, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan's "School for Scandal," premiered in London with Georgiana
Cavendish as Lady Teazle. "Its assumptions are that lust and greed -
when allied with beauty and cunning - deserve to triumph over
dullness and age." He also wrote "A Trip to Scarborough," a rewrite
of a Restoration original.
(WSJ,11/24/95, p.A-6)(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.W6)(MC,
5/1/02)

1777 Aug 22, With the approach
of General Benedict Arnold's army, British Colonel Barry St. Ledger
abandoned Fort Stanwix and returned to Canada.
(HN, 8/22/98)

1777 Sep 11, General George
Washington and his troops were defeated by the British under General
Sir William Howe at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania. Posing
as a gunsmith, British Sergeant John Howe served as General Gage's
eyes in a restive Massachusetts colony.
(HN, 9/11/98)

1777 Sep 19, During the
Revolutionary War, American soldiers won the first Battle of
Saratoga, aka Battle of Freeman's Farm (Bemis Heights). American
forces under Gen. Horatio Gates met British troops led by Gen. John
Burgoyne at Saratoga Springs, NY.
(AP,
9/19/97)(www.americanrevolution.com/BattleofSaratoga.htm)

1777 Sep 26, The British army
launched a major offensive during the American Revolution, capturing
Philadelphia.
(HN, 9/26/99)(AP, 9/26/97)

1777 Sep 27, At the Battle of
Germantown the British defeated Washington's army. English General
William Howe occupied Philadelphia. [see Sep 25,26]
(MC, 9/27/01)

1777 Oct 4, George Washington's
troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Penn.,
resulting in heavy American casualties. British General Sir William
Howe repelled Washington's last attempt to retake Philadelphia,
compelling Washington to spend the winter at Valley Forge.
(AP, 10/4/97)(HN, 10/4/98)

1777 Oct 7, The second Battle
of Saratoga began during the American Revolution. During the battle
General Benedict Arnold was shot in the leg. Another bullet killed
his horse, which fell on Arnold, crushing his leg. The "Boot
Monument" sits close to the spot where Arnold was wounded, and is a
tribute to the general’s heroic deeds during that battle. Although
Arnold’s accomplishments are described on the monument, it pointedly
avoids naming the man best known for betraying his country. The
British forces, under Gen. John Burgoyne, surrendered 10 days later.
(AP, 10/7/97)(HNQ, 7/20/01)
1777 Oct 7, Simon Fraser,
English general, died in the battle of Saratoga, NY.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Simon_Fraser_of_Balnian)

1777 In England Charles Hall
founded a brewery in Dorset. In 1847 the Woodhouses married into the
family and it became the Hall & Woodhouse brewery.
(Econ, 5/10/14, SR p.3)

1778 Jan 18, English navigator
Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he dubbed
the "Sandwich Islands" after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord
Sandwich. About 350,000 Hawaiians inhabited them. Cook first landed
on Kauai and then Niihau where his men introduced venereal disease.
(Wired, 8/95, p.90)(AP, 1/18/98)(HN, 1/18/99)

1778 Aug 14, Augustus Montague
Toplady (b.1740), English Calvinist hymn writer (Rock of Ages),
died. His best prose work is the "Historic Proof of the Doctrinal
Calvinism of the Church of England" (London, 1774).
(MC, 8/14/02)(Wikipedia)

1778
Nov 11, British redcoats, Tory rangers and Seneca Indians in central
New York state killed more than 40 people in the Cherry Valley
Massacre. A regiment of 800 Tory rangers under Butler (1752-1781)
and 500 Native forces under the Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant
(1742-1807), fell upon the settlement, killing 47, including 32
noncombatants, mostly by tomahawk.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Cherry-Valley-Massacre)(AP,
11/11/07)

1778 Dec 29, British troops,
attempting a new strategy to defeat the colonials in America,
captured Savannah, the capital of Georgia.
(HN, 12/29/98)

1778 Thomas West, a Jesuit
priest (c.1720-1779), wrote the “Guide to the Lakes," the first
guidebook to the Lake District of England.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.88)(http://tinyurl.com/y4prxbr)

1778 In England the Catholic
Relief Act was enacted. It inspired London riots in Jun 1780.
(HNQ, 2/24/99)

1778 Botanist Joseph Banks
(1743-1820) became president of the British Royal Society. He had
accompanied Capt. Cook to catalog plants and animals of Australia
and New Zealand on the 3-year journey (1768-1771).
(Econ, 7/11/09,
p.87)(www.nndb.com/people/077/000100774/)

1778 Benjamin Franklin, on a
diplomatic mission in France, approved a plan by John Paul Jones to
disrupt British merchant shipping along Britain's undefended west
coast.
(ON, 2/04, p.6)

1779 Jun 16, Spain, in support
of the US, declared war on England.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1779 Jun 16, Vice-Admiral Hardy
sailed out of Isle of Wight against the Spanish fleet.
(MC, 6/16/02)

1779 Sep 23, During the
Revolutionary War, the American navy under John Paul Jones,
commanding from Bonhomie Richard, defeated and captured the British
man-of-war Serapis. An American attack on a British convoy pitted
the British frigate HMS Serapis against the American Bon Homme
Richard. The American ship was commanded by Scotsman John Paul
Jones, who chose to name the ship after Benjamin Franklin's “Poor
Richard’s Almanack." Fierce fighting ensued, and when Richard began
to sink, Serapis commander Richard Pearson called over to ask if
Richard would surrender and Jones responded, "I have not yet begun
to fight!"--a response that would become a slogan of the U.S. Navy.
Pearson surrendered and Jones took control of Serapis. The Bonhomie
Richard sank 2 days after the battle. In 1959 the film Jean Paul
Jones starred Robert Stack.
(TVM, 1975, p.294)(AP, 9/23/97)(HN,
9/23/98)(HNPD, 9/23/98)(Arch, 9/02, p.17)

1779 Sep 27, From the US John
Adams was named to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms
with Britain.
(AP, 9/27/97)

1779 Richard Samuel (d.1787),
British painter, sent the Royal Academy exhibition his “Nine Living
Muses of Great Britain." The 1778 painting featured a group of
female writers and artists that included the Swiss-Austrian painter
Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807).
(Econ, 3/22/08,
p.97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelica_Kauffmann)

1779 Frances Trollope was born
the daughter of a clergyman and raised near Bristol. She produced 35
novels and 5 travel books. In 1998 Pamela Neville-Sington wrote the
biography "Fanny Trollope: The Life and Adventures of a Clever
Woman."
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)

1779 Richard Brinsley Sheridan
wrote his play "The Critic." It was a rewrite of a Restoration
original.
(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.W6)

1779 Catherine the Great of
Russia bought 204 works of art from the collection of Sir Robert
Walpole (d.1745) from Walpole’s grandson. The sale was brokered by
pioneering auctioneer James Christie. In 1789 the Picture Gallery at
Walpole’s Houghton estate was destroyed by fire.
(WSJ, 1/04/00, p.A16)(Econ, 5/18/13, p.89)(Econ,
9/28/13, p.63)

1779 The British adopted
a strategy to seize parts of Maine, especially around Penobscot Bay,
and make it a new colony to be called "New Ireland." In July a
British naval and military force under the command of General
Francis McLean sailed into the harbor of Castine, Maine, landed
troops, and took control of the village. After peace was signed in
1783, the New Ireland proposal was abandoned.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Ireland_%28Maine%29)

1780 Mar 26, The 1st British
Sunday newspaper appeared as the British Gazette and Sunday Monitor.
(SS, 3/26/02)

1780 Jun, The London riots led
by George Gordon in opposition to the Catholic Relief Act of 1778
took place. Anti-Catholic protesters wrought anarchy for a week in
the Gordon riots.
(HNQ, 2/24/99)(Econ, 10/19/13, p.88)

1780 Aug 16, American troops
were badly defeated by the British at the Battle of Camden, South
Carolina.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(HN, 8/16/98)

1780 Sep 23, British spy John
Andre was captured along with papers revealing Benedict Arnold's
plot to surrender West Point to the British.
(AP, 9/23/97)

1780 Sep 25, American General
Benedict Arnold joined the British.
(MC, 9/25/01)

1780 Oct 2, British spy John
Andre was hanged in Tappan, N.Y., for conspiring with Benedict
Arnold.
(AP, 10/2/97)

1780 Oct 7, Colonial patriots
slaughtered a loyalist group at the Battle of King's Mountain in
South Carolina. Patrick Ferguson (36), English Major in South
Carolina, died in the battle along with some 200 Loyalists. Patriot
losses numbered 30 with 62 wounded.
(HN, 10/7/99)(ON, 12/07, p.7)

1780 Oct 31, The HMS Ontario
was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during
a gale on Lake Ontario. In 2008 explorers found the 22-gun British
warship. Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith chronicled the history
of the HMS Ontario in a 1997 book, "The Legend of the Lake."
(AP, 6/14/08)

1780 George Stubbs, British
painter, created his portrait of a poodle.
(SFC, 6/25/99, p.A3)

1780 William Wilberforce (21)
entered Parliament as an independent from Hull.
(ON, 4/05, p.1)
1780 Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
playwright, entered Parliament as a supporter of the Whig politician
Charles James Fox, who supported the American colonies against
George III.
(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.W6)(WSJ, 1/7/00, p.W4)

1780 US Gen’l. Benedict Arnold,
newly married and strapped for cash to maintain an extravagant
lifestyle, began providing information to the British. He eventually
joined the British as a brigadier general.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A3)

1780-1783 A 4-year war between England and the
Dutch was fought.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.F4)

1781 Feb 25, American General
Nathanael Greene crossed the Dan River on his way to his March 15th
confrontation with Lord Charles Cornwallis at Guilford Court House,
N.C.
(HN, 2/25/98)

1781 Apr 29, French fleet
stopped Britain from seizing the Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 4/29/02)

1781 May 13, British Gen.
William Phillips died of a fever Petersburg, Va., as his forces
confronted the American army under Lafayette. Phillips had commanded
the artillery battery whose fire had killed Lafayette’s father at
the Battle of Minden (1759).
(ON, 2/09, p.5)

1781 Jun 9, George Stephenson,
English engineer, inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in
Newcastle, England.
(HN, 6/9/01)(MC, 6/9/02)

1781 Sep 5, The British fleet
arrived off the Virginia Capes and found 26 French warships in three
straggling lines. Rear Adm. Thomas Graves waited for the French to
form their battle lines and then fought for 5 days. Outgunned and
unnerved he withdrew to New York. The French had some 37 ships and
29,000 soldiers and sailors at Yorktown while Washington had some
11,000 men engaged. French warships defeated British fleet, trapping
Cornwallis in Yorktown.
(NG, 6/1988, p.763)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)(MC,
9/5/01)

1781 Oct 19, Major General Lord
Charles Cornwallis, surrounded at Yorktown, Va., by American and
French regiments numbering 17,600 men, surrendered to George
Washington and Count de Rochambeau at Yorktown, Va. Cornwallis
surrendered 7,157 troops, including sick and wounded, and 840
sailors, along with 244 artillery pieces. Losses in this battle had
been light on both sides. Cornwallis sent Brig. Gen. Charles O'Hara
to surrender his sword. At Washington's behest, Maj. Gen. Benjamin
Lincoln accepted it. Washington himself is seen in the right
background of “The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown" by
artist John Trumbull. After conducting an indecisive foray into
Virginia, Lt. Gen. Charles Lord Cornwallis retired to Yorktown on
August 2, 1781. On August 16, General Washington and Maj. Gen. Jean
Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, began marching
their Continental and French armies from New York to Virginia. The
arrival of a French fleet, and its victory over a British fleet in
Chesapeake Bay, sealed the trap.
(NG, 6/1988, p.808)(AP, 10/19/97)(HNPD,
10/19/98)(HN, 10/19/98)

1781 Nov, British Capt. Luke
Collingwood, commander of the slave ship Zong, in the face of
endemic dysentery that had already killed 7 crewmen and 60 of 470
slaves, ordered his crew to throw sick slaves overboard in order to
claim insurance money at the end of the voyage. Over 100 slaves were
cast overboard. In 2007 Marcus Rediker authored “The Slave Ship," an
account of this and the slave trade from 1700-1808.
(www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/slavery/the_zong.html)(WSJ,
10/11/07, p.D8)

1781 Asprey of London was
founded. They established themselves based on accouterments and
paraphernalia for tea parties.
(SFEM,10/26/97, p.4)

1782 Mar 24, Loyalist
militiamen captured a fort on the New Jersey coast. Revolutionary
commander Captain Joshua Huddy was captured and taken to New York. A
few days later loyalist soldier Philip White was killed in Monmouth
County, New Jersey.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Huddy)(Econ,
12/20/14, p.49)

1782 Apr 12, The British navy
won its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American
Revolution at the Battle of Les Saintes in the West Indies off
Dominica. A British fleet beat the French.
(HN, 4/12/99)(MC, 4/12/02)

1782 May 26, British officer
Capt. Charles Asgill (20), a captive from Yorktown, drew a short
straw and was thereby selected to be executed should Capt.
Lippincott not be turned over to the Patriots for trial. Asgill was
spared following an appeal by French foreign minister Comte de
Vergennes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Huddy)(Econ,
12/20/14, p.49)

1782 Sep 13, The British
fortress at Gibraltar came under attack by French and Spanish
forces.
(HN, 9/13/98)

1782 Nov 30, The United States
and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, recognizing
American independence and ending the Revolutionary War.
(AP, 11/30/97)(HN, 11/30/98)

1782 Dec 14, Charleston, SC,
was evacuated by British.
(MC, 12/14/01)

1783 Jan 19, William Pitt
became the youngest Prime Minister of England at age 24.
(HN, 1/19/99)

1783 Jan 20, The fighting of
the Revolutionary War ended. Britain signed a peace agreement with
France and Spain, who allied against it in the American War of
Independence.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(HN, 1/20/99)

1783 Feb 4, Britain declared a
formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United
States of America.
(AP, 2/4/97)

1783 Apr 11, After receiving a
copy of the provisional treaty on 13 March, the US Congress
proclaimed a formal end to hostilities with Great Britain.
(HN, 4/11/99)

1783 Jun 1, Last British troops
sailed from New York. (MC, 6/1/02)
1783 Jun 1, Charles Byrne (22),
known as the Irish giant, died. Standing at seven feet seven inches
tall (2.3 meters) he was a celebrity in his own lifetime. When he
died the renowned surgeon and anatomist John Hunter was keen to
acquire his skeleton. Byrne wanted to be buried at sea. The surgeon
managed to bribe one of the Irishman's friends and took his body
before it could be laid to rest in the English Channel. Hunter
boiled Byrne's body down to a skeleton and it became a key feature
of his anatomy collection. In 2011 Experts called for the skeleton
to be buried at sea, as Byrne wanted.
(AP,
12/21/11)(http://www.thetallestman.com/pdf/charlesbyrne.pdf)

1783 Sep 3, The Treaty of Paris
between the United States and Great Britain officially ended the
Revolutionary War. The Treaty of 1783, which formally ended the
American Revolution, is also known as the Definitive Treaty of
Peace, the Peace of Paris and the Treaty of Versailles. Under the
treaty, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United
States. The treaty bears the signatures of Benjamin Franklin, John
Adams and John Jay.
(AP, 9/3/97) (HNQ, 7/19/98)(HN, 9/3/98)(MC,
9/3/01)

1783 Dec 9, The 1st execution
at English Newgate-jail took place.
(MC, 12/9/01)

1783 In Britain William Pitt
(24) became prime minister and the youngest leader of the Tories. He
was one of Great Britain‘s greatest peacetime leaders and served a
prime minister from 1783-1801 and from 1804 until his death in 1806.
Pitt was the son of William Pitt the Elder, who served as prime
minister from 1766 to 1768.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)(HNQ,
1/29/00)
1783 English Architect Thomas
Leverton (1795-1885) designed the fanlight window above an entry in
London’s Bedford Square.
(WSJ, 11/18/06,
p.P11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Leverton_Donaldson)
1783 Executions were moved from
Tyburn Gallows in Hyde Park to Newgate Prison.
(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.24)
1783 James Man founded a sugar
cooperage and brokerage at 23 Harp Lane in the City of London. The
company later became known as the Man Group.
(www.mangroupplc.com/assets/pdf/media/press-pack.pdf)(Econ, 5/22/10,
p.78)

1783-1881 In the Highland Clearances about 150,000
people were forced off their land to make way for large-scale sheep
farming, an act many blame on Britain's ruling establishment.
(Reuters, 2/16/12)

1784 Jan 14, The United States
ratified a peace treaty with England, the Treaty of Paris, ending
the Revolutionary War.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/14/98)

1784 Feb 28, John Wesley
(1703-1791) chartered the Methodist Church. His teaching emphasized
field preaching along with piety, probity and respectability. In
2003 Roy Hattersley authored "A Brand from the Burning: The Life of
John Wesley."
(MC, 2/28/02)(WSJ, 6/13/03, p.W19)

1784 Mar 1, E. Kidner opened
the 1st cooking school in Great Britain.
(SC, 3/1/02)

1784 May 20, Peace of
Versailles ended the war between France, England, and Holland.
(HN, 5/20/98)

1784 Oct 19, Leigh Hunt
(d.1859), English journalist, essayist, poet and political radical,
was born. He was a friend and advisor to Shelley and Lord Byron and
wrote the poems "Abou Ben Adhem" and "Jenny Kissed Me."
(HN,
10/19/99)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRleigh.htm)

1784 Nov 29, American Dr. John
Jeffries paid Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard £100 pounds for a
balloon flight in England during which he made some atmospheric
measurements.
(ON, 10/03, p.6)

1784 Dec 13, Samuel Johnson
(b.1709), English lexicographer, essayist, poet and moralist best
known for "The Dictionary of the English Language," died.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." -- (To which Ambrose
Bierce replied, "I beg to submit that it is the first.") Johnson, an
antagonist of slavery, left behind an annuity and much of his
personal property to his black valet, Francis Barber (b.1735-1801).
In 1791 Boswell wrote the celebrated "The Life of Samuel Johnson."
In 1955 Walter Jackson Bate (1918-1999) published "The Achievement
of Samuel Johnson" and in 1977 the biography "Samuel Johnson." In
2000 Adam Potkay authored "The Passion for Happiness," in which he
argued that Samuel Johnson should be included in the Anglo-Scottish
Enlightenment along with David Hume, Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon.
In 2000 Peter Martin authored "A Life of James Boswell." In 2008
Peter Martin authored “Samuel Johnson: A biography."
(AP, 10/8/97)(WSJ, 11/29/00, p.A24)(ON, 11/06,
p.10)(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.M3)(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A23)

1784 England’s Quarry Bank Mill
on the river Bollin at Styal was built by merchant Samuel Greg to
supply cotton to the weavers of Lancashire. Raw cotton from America
was processed on the latest machinery, Richard Arkwright’s water
frame.
(Econ, 9/24/11, SR p.3)

1785 Jan 1, The Daily Universal
Register (Times of London) published its 1st issue. It became The
Times on Jan 1, 1788.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times)

1785 William Paley (1743-1805),
an orthodox Anglican and conservative moral and political thinker,
published “The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy."
(www.wmcarey.edu/carey/paley/paley.htm)

1785 Prince George of England
after mentioning to his wife that he liked her right eye, was
presented with a Christmas painting of the eye. It started a London
fad and eye paintings flourished for a brief time.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, Z1 p.6)

1785 John Adams, the new US
ambassador to Britain, presented himself to King George.
(Econ, 1/28/06, p.80)

1786 Feb 24, Charles
Cornwallis, whose armies had surrendered to US at Yorktown, was
appointed governor-general of India. [see Sep 12]
(MC, 2/24/02)

1786 Meg Nicholson (d.1828)
attempted to stab King George III. She was sent to Bedlam and died
there at age 77.
(WSJ, 1/29/03, p.D10)

1786 William Playfair, Scottish
draughtsman for James Watt, produced an “atlas" of Britain using 44
charts and no maps. It was titled “The Commercial and Political
Atlas: Representing, by Means of Stained Copper-Plate Charts, the
Progress of the Commerce, Revenues, Expenditure and Debts of England
during the Whole of the Eighteenth Century."
(Econ, 1/8/05,
p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Playfair)

1786 Capt. Francis Light landed
in Penang (Malaysia) and built Fort Cornwallis. Light, acting on
behalf of the East India Company, swindled the island from the
ruling sultan with a promise of protection. The British usurped the
land to break the Dutch monopoly on the spice trade.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.T8)(SFEM, 12/19/99, p.8)(SFC,
12/8/05, p.E7)

1787 May 10, The British
Parliament impeached Warren Hastings. There was an effort to impeach
the governor-general of India. Edmund Burke indicted Warren
Hastings, governor-general of India (1773-1785), on 21 charges for
high crimes and misdemeanors. The trial lasted 7 years and Hastings
was acquitted on all charges.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, BR p.11)(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)(MC,
5/10/02)

1787 May 13, Arthur Phillip set
sail from Portsmouth, Great Britain, with 11 ships of criminals to
Australia. By year’s end some 50,000 British convict servants were
transported to the American colonies in commutation of death
sentences. After the American Revolution, Britain continued dumping
convicts in the US illegally into 1787. Australia eventually
replaced America for this purpose. Penal transports continued until
1853, which left a remarkable legacy: an almost totally unexplored
continent settled largely by convicted felons.
(HNQ,
1/24/99)(www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?dID=35)

1787 Dec, William Wilberforce,
on the suggestion of PM William Pitt, introduced a motion in British
Parliament for the abolition of the slave trade.
(ON, 4/05, p.2)

1787 Granville Sharp, English
abolitionist, formed the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the
Slave Trade.
(ON, 12/08, p.9)
1787 Thomas Clarkson, deacon in
the Church of England, led the formation of the original
abolitionist committee, the interdenominational “Committee to Effect
the Abolition of the Slave Trade." His anti-slavery committee
distributed 1,000 copies of “A Letter to our Friends in the Country,
to inform them of the state of the Business." This was later
considered as possibly the 1st direct-mail fund-raising letter. In
2004 Adam Hochschild authored “Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels
in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves."
(SSFC, 1/23/05, p.F1)(ON, 4/05, p.1)
1787 Henry Hobhouse, a Bristol
slave trader, bought the Hadspen country house in Somerset, England,
and rebuilt it.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.23)
1787 English ships transported
some 38,000 slaves this year.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.93)
1787 British settlers bought
land from African tribal leaders in Sierra Leone and used it as a
haven for freed African slaves. The indigenous community, dominated
by the Mende, wiped out the first settlers. A 2nd group followed in
1792. The settlers intermarried but held themselves aloof,
monopolized power and discriminated against the original population.
In 2005 Simon Schama authored “Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves
and the American Revolution."
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A10)(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)(WSJ,
5/31/00, p.A26)(Econ, 8/27/05, p.66)(MT, summer 2003, p.8)
1787 Gen. Thomas Gage, former
commander of British forces in North America, died at age 66. In
1948 John Richard Alden authored "General Gage in America."
(ON, 3/01, p.4)

1788 Jan 22, George Gordon
(d.1824), (6th Baron Byron) aka Lord Byron, English poet, was born
with a deformed foot. His work included "Lara," "Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage" and "Don Juan." He died in Greece at Missolonghi on the
gulf of Patras preparing to fight for Greek independence. In 1997
the biography: "Byron: The flawed Angel" by Phyllis Grosskurth was
published.
(WUD, 1994, p.204,917)(SFC, 6/9/97, p.D3)(SFEC,
11/15/98, Z1 p.10)(HN, 1/22/99)

1788 Jan 26, The 1st fleet of
ships carrying 736 convicts from England landed at Sydney Cove, New
South Wales, Australia. The first European settlers in Australia,
led by Capt. Arthur Phillip, landed in present-day Sydney. The day
is since known as Australia’s national day. In 2006 Thomas Keneally
authored “The Commonwealth of Thieves: The Story of the Founding of
Australia."
(AP, 1/26/98)(HN, 1/26/99)(WSJ, 9/19/00,
p.A1)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.83)

1788 Feb 5, Sir Robert Peel
(d.1850), British prime minister through the early 1800s, was born.
He founded the Conservative Party and the London Police Force whose
officers were called "bobbies."
(HN, 2/5/99)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.93)

1788 Apr 15, Mary Delany
(b.1700), English artist and writer, died. She became known for her
“Flora Delanica," a collection of 985 botanically accurate portraits
of flowers in bloom. In 2011 Molly Peacock authored “"The Paper
Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s work at 72."
(Econ, 6/11/11,
p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Delany)

1788 May 9, English parliament
abolished slave trade.
(MC, 5/9/02)

1788 Jun 11, The 1st British
ship to be built on Pacific coast was begun at Nootka Sound, BC.
(SC, 6/11/02)

1789 Apr 28, Fletcher Christian
lead a mutiny on the Bounty as the crew of the British ship set
Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors adrift in a launch in the South
Pacific. Richard Hough later authored: "Captain Bligh and Mr.
Christian."
http://www.visi.com/~pjlareau//bounty1.html
(AP, 4/28/97)(HN, 4/28/98)(SFC, 10/9/99,
p.A20)(MC, 4/28/02)

1789 May 12, In England William
Wilberforce laid out his case for the abolition of slavery to the
House of Commons. This speech directly led to Britain’s abolition of
slavery in 1807.
(WSJ, 5/12/07, p.P14)

1789 Jun 14, Captain William
Bligh of the HMS Bounty arrived in Timor in a small boat.
(HN, 6/14/98)

1789 Sep 1, Lady Marguerite
Blessington, beautiful English socialite and author, was born. She
wrote a biography of Lord Byron.
(HN, 9/1/99)

1789 Edward IV was exhumed and
he was found to have been 6’3" tall.
(MH, 12/96)

1789 Part of the art
collection, 181 paintings, of Sir Robert Walpole was sold by his
heirs to Catherine the Great for 40,000 Pounds.
(WSJ, 3/3/97, p.A16)

1789 English Thomas Clarkson
and his fellow abolitionists published 700 posters with the image of
the slave ship Brookes loaded with 482 slaves. The ship, owned by
the Brookes family of Liverpool, operated between the Gold Coast of
Africa and Jamaica.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.72)

1789-1837 Ben Wilson covered this period in his
2007 book “The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in
Britain, 1789-1837."
(WSJ, 3/24/07, p.P12)(Econ, 4/7/07, p.81)

1789-1854 John Martin, British artist. He was
known as "Mad Martin" for his paintings of monumental disasters. His
work included "Assuaging of the Waters," "The Eve of the Deluge,"
and "The Deluge."
(SFEC, 5/4/97, DB p.9)

1790 Mar 14, Captain Bligh
returned to England with news of the mutiny on the Bounty.
(ON, 3/04, p.9)

1790 Mar 24, King George
ordered the Admiralty to capture Fletcher Henderson for the mutiny
on the Bounty.
(ON, 3/04, p.9)

1790 Gustavus Brander, a
collector of books and antiquities, sold a fair copy of sections of
the inventory of Henry VIII to the Society of Antiquaries.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.20)

1791 Apr, William Wilberforce
again introduced a motion in British Parliament for the abolition of
the slave trade, but lost by a vote of 163 to 88.
(ON, 4/05, p.2)

1791 May 16, James Boswell’s
celebrated 2-volume work, "The Life of Samuel Johnson," was
published. In 2001 Adam Sisman authored "Boswell’s Presumptuous
Task," an account of how Boswell came to write the Johnson
biography.
(WSJ, 8/24/01, p.W8)(ON, 11/06, p.10)

1791 Jul 14-1791 Jul 17, Riots
took place in Birmingham, England. The houses of Joseph Priestley
and other political dissenters were burned to the ground. Priestley
had rejected various supernatural elements of Christianity,
criticized the Church of England, and supported the French
Revolution.
(SFC, 1/9/09,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestley_Riots)

1791 Aug 29, The Pandora under
Capt. Edward Edwards sank in Endeavour Strait (later Torres Strait)
between Australia and New Guinea. 33 crewmen and 4 prisoners died.
They managed to use small boats and arrived in Timor on Sep 16.
(ON, 3/04, p.9)

1791 Sep 22, Michael Faraday
(d.1867), English physicist, was born in London. He demonstrated
that a magnetic field induces a current in a moving conductor. He
invented the dynamo, the transformer and the electric motor.
(V.D.-H.K.p.269)(HN, 9/22/00)

1792 Aug 4, Percy Bysshe
Shelley (d.1822), English poet and author who wrote "Prometheus
Unbound," was born in Field Place, England. He married Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin, author of "Frankenstein." He wrote the poem
"Adonais."
(WUD, 1994, p.1314)(HN, 8/4/98)

1792 Aug 18, Lord John Russel,
Prime Minister of England from 1846 to 1852 and 1865 to 1866, was
born.
(HN, 8/18/98)

1792 Aug 29, The English
warship Royal George capsized in Spithead and 900 people were
killed.
(MC, 8/29/01)

1892 Sep 18, At Spithead,
England, verdicts and sentences were announced for the 10 prisoners
from the mutiny on the Bounty. 4 men were acquitted, and 6 were
found guilty and condemned to death. 2 of the condemned were
pardoned and another was freed on a technicality. 3 were later
hanged.
(ON, 3/04, p.9)

1792 Mary Wollstonecraft
(Godwin) wrote her essay "Vindication of the Rights of Woman." She
married Godwin in 1797 after learning that she was pregnant and died
in childbirth.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.28)(Econ, 2/26/05, p.84)

1792 In England consumers began
an organized boycott against West Indian sugar. The Anti-Saccharine
Society displayed a cross-section of a slave ship with men shackled
head-to-toe like sardines.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.94)

1792 William Wilberforce
introduced a new motion in British Parliament for the gradual
abolition of the slave trade. The “gradual" wording, proposed by
home office minister Henry Dundas, led to passage of the bill in the
House of Commons 230 to 85.
(ON, 4/05, p.2)
1792 James Penny, Liverpool
slave trader, was presented with a magnificent silver epergne for
speaking in favor of the slave trade to a parliamentary committee.
Liverpool’s Penny Lane was named after him.
(SSFC, 7/9/06,
p.A2)(www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/slavery/liverpool.asp)

1792 Arthur Phillip, the 1st
governor of New South Wales, Australia, returned to England
accompanied by Bennelong, an Aboriginal who had earlier attacked and
wounded him. Philip later gave Bennelong a house on a point in
Sydney Cove. In 1973 it became the site of the Sydney Opera House.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.83)

1792 The British St. George’s
Bay Company transported a 2nd group of settlers to Freetown. This
included 1,196 Blacks from Nova Scotia, 500 Jamaicans and dozens of
rebellious slaves from other colonies.
(MT, summer 2003, p.8)

1793 Feb 1, France declared war
on Britain and the Netherlands.
(HN, 2/1/99)

1793 Apr 29, John Michell
(b.1724) English clergyman and natural philosopher, died in
Yorkshire. He provided pioneering insights in a wide range of
scientific fields, including astronomy, geology, optics, and
gravitation. Michell was the first person to propose that black
holes existed.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michell)

1793 Jul 13, John Clare,
English poet, was born. He was discovered in 1819 and spent his last
30 years in an asylum. In 2003 Jonathan Bate authored "John Clare: A
Biography."
(HN, 7/13/01)(Econ, 10/11/03, p.85)

1793 Sep 6, French General Jean
Houchard and his 40,000 men began a three-day battle against an
Anglo-Hanoverian army at Hondschoote, southwest Belgium, in the wars
of the French Revolution.
(HN, 9/6/98)

1793 Sep, The 1st British
soldiers came ashore at St. Domingue.
(SFCM, 5/30/04, p.10)

1793 Dec 19, French troops
recaptured Toulon from the British. Napoleon Bonaparte led the
intense shelling of British positions. This led to his promotion to
brigadier general.
(ON, 2/12, p.6)

1793 The British took over the
island of St. Vincent. A series of wars ensued against the black
Caribs.
(SFC, 7/25/07, p.E2)
1793 The Minton dishware
company was established in Stoke, Staffordshire, England.
(SFC,11/5/97, Z.1 p.3)(SFC, 3/19/08, p.G6)
1793 China’s Emperor Qianlong
accepted gifts from Lord George Macartney, but turned away the
British fleet under his command with the declaration that China had
all things in abundance and had no interest in “foreign
manufactures."
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R51)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.13)(Econ,
8/23/14, p.43)

1793-1795 The British engaged in the ill-fated
Flanders Campaign.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.42)

1793-1835 Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans, English
poet: "Though the past haunt me as a spirit, I do not ask to
forget."
(AP, 12/31/98)

1795 Apr 8, The Prince of
Wales, later England’s King George IV, married his German cousin,
Caroline, to produce an heir and increase his income. On their
wedding night the drunken bridegroom spent the night "under the
grate, where he fell, and where I left him." The story is told by
Flora Fraser in her book: "The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen
Caroline." Masterpiece Theater made a TV presentation in 1997.
(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.3)(WSJ, 1/9/97,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_of_Brunswick)

1795 Apr 23, In Britain the
trial to impeach Warren Hastings, governor-general of India
(1773-1785), on 21 charges for high crimes and misdemeanors ended
after 7 years. Hastings was acquitted on all charges.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, BR p.11)(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)(MC,
4/23/02)

1795 May 19, James Boswell
(54), friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson, died. His 1791
biography, the Life of Samuel Johnson," changed the way biographies
were written by its emphasis on character and careful research.
(ON, 11/06,
p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Boswell)

1795 May, Mungo Park, Scottish
surgeon, sailed from England on behalf of the British African
Association to search for the Niger River.
(ON, 7/00, p.10)

1795 The Orange Order was
founded as a force for uniting disparate Protestant denominations
under one anti-Catholic banner. It was instrumental in creating
Northern Ireland in 1921 shortly before the predominantly Catholic
rest of Ireland won independence from Britain.
{Ireland, Northern Ireland, Britain}
(AP, 7/12/13)
1795 Britain reinforced its
forces in St. Domingue. It was the largest expedition that had ever
left England.
(SFCM, 5/30/04, p.12)
1795 Lime juice was issued to
all British sailors to aid in prevention of scurvy. Captain James
Cook (d.1779) had prepared a paper detailing his groundbreaking work
against scurvy. He was awarded the gold Copley Medal-one of the
highest honors of England's Royal Society. Scurvy epidemics were
once common among sailors on long voyages. Cook was the first to
beat the problem, recognizing the need for an appropriate diet for
his sailors.
(HNQ, 7/21/98)
1795 In England the Coalport
Porcelain Works began operations about this time.
(SFC, 5/28/08,
p.G2)(www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/283.htm)

1796 May 14, English physician
Edward Jenner administered the first vaccination against smallpox to
his gardener's son, James Phipps (8). A single blister rose up on
the spot, but James later demonstrated immunity to smallpox. Jenner
actually used vaccinia, a close viral relation to smallpox. [see
July 21, 1721]
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.77)(AP, 5/14/08)

1796 Jun 1, In accordance with
the Jay Treaty, all British troops were withdrawn from U.S. soil.
(DTnet 6/1/97)

1796 British writer Jane Austen
(b.1775) began her novel “Pride and Prejudice." Its initial title
was “first Impressions." It was finally published in 1830.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.104)(ON, 12/09, p.8)

1796 Cuba exported Havana
cigars to Britain.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)

1796 Mary Lamb (31) killed her
mother with a carving knife. England deemed her a lunatic and
released into the custody of her brother Charles. In 1806 they
published “Tales From Shakespeare." In 2005 Susan Tyler Hitchcock
authored “Mad Mary Lamb."
(WSJ, 2/18/05, p.W6)

1796 Harry Phillips (d.1840), a
former clerk to James Christie, founded the Phillips auction house
in London.
(Econ, 1/30/15, p.54)

1797 Feb 14, The Spanish fleet
was destroyed by the British under Admiral Jervis (with Nelson in
support) at the battle of Cape St. Vincent, off Portugal.
(HN, 2/14/99)

1797 May 2, A mutiny in the
British navy spread from Spithead to the rest of the fleet.
(HN, 5/2/99)

1797 Jul 9, Edmund Burke
(b.1729), Irish-born British statesman, parliament leader, died. His
writing included “Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790).
In 2013 Jesse Norman authored “Edmund Burke: The First
Conservative." In 2014 David Bromwich authored “The Intellectual
Life of Edmund Burke: From the Sublime and Beautiful to American
Independence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke)(Econ,
5/25/13, p.85)(Econ, 7/5/14, p.69)

1797 Aug 30, Mary
Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley (d.1851), the creator of
"Frankenstein," or the Modern Prometheus, was born in London. Her
mother died days later.
(AHD, p.1193)(AP, 8/30/97)(HN, 8/30/98)(Econ,
2/26/05, p.84)

1797 Sep 10, Mary
Wollstonecraft (b.1759), English writer, philosopher, advocate of
women's rights and the spouse of journalist William Godwin, died of
septicemia. This was several days after the birth of her daughter,
who later as Mary Shelley authored Frankenstein.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft)(Econ, 2/25/17,
p.73)

1797 The Bank of England
suspended the convertibility of its notes to gold in order to better
finance Britain’s war with France. This continued to 1821.
(Econ, 11/5/11, p.92)
1797 A British publisher
produced “The Young Man’s Valentine Writer," a collection of writing
and verses for men who couldn’t create their own.
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.54)(http://tinyurl.com/mp3582r)
1797 French forces attacked
Britain at the port of Fishguard. The event was depicted in the
tapestry "The Last Invasion of Britain."
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T5)

1798 May 2, The black General
Toussaint L'ouverture forced British troops to agree to evacuate the
port of Santo Domingo. After 5 years of fighting over 60% of 20,000
British troops were buried on St. Domingue.
(HN, 5/2/99)(SFCM, 5/30/04, p.12)

1798 Aug 1, Admiral Horatio
Nelson routed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile at Aboukir
Bay, Egypt.
(HN, 8/1/98)

1798 Oct, In Saint-Domingue
(later Haiti) Gen. Toussaint L’Ouverture negotiated a secret peace
agreement in which the British renounced all claim to the colony’s
lands in exchange for the right to trade freely on an equal basis
with France.
(ON, 2/10, p.7)

1798 Nov 16, The British
boarded the U.S. frigate Baltimore and impressed a number of crewmen
as alleged deserters, a practice which contributed to the War of
1812.
(HN, 11/16/98)

1798 Dec 24, Russia and England
signed a Second anti-French Coalition.
(MC, 12/24/01)

1798 Thomas Robert Malthus
authored his “An Essay on the Principle of Population As it affects
the future improvement of society with remarks on the speculations
of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other writers." His forecast for a
population crash was based on the calculation that it was impossible
to improve wheat yields as fast as people make babies. His 2nd
edition in 1803 introduced the idea of moral restraint.
(www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Malthus/essay2.htm)(Econ,
12/24/05, p.29)(Econ, 5/17/08, p.94)

1798 Samuel Solomon published
“Guide to Health or, advice to both sexes with an essay on a certain
disease, seminal weakness, and a destructive habit of private
nature. Also an address to parents, tutors, and guardians of youth.
To which one added, observations on the use and abuse of cold
bathing" gave advice on topics including abortion, onanism, asthma,
barrenness and bleeding. The main remedy for all ailments was Dr
Solomon’s "Cordial Balm of Gilead."
(http://tinyurl.com/2rrttq)(www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2001/v/n23/005993ar.html)

1798 In Northern Ireland there
was a rebellion against England. It was put down by the Orange
yeomanry who were enlisted by the government to restore peace. The
slogan "Croppies lie down" originated here after some of the rebel
Catholics had their hair cropped in the French revolutionary manner.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A15)

1798-1799 Wordsworth spent time in Germany and it
was later alleged that he acted as a spy for Pitt’s government.
(WSJ, 6/23/98, p.A18)

1799 May 4, In India Tipu
Sultan was killed in a battle against 5,000 British soldiers who
stormed and razed his capital, Seringapatanam. British forces
defeated the sultan of Mysore at the Battle of Seringapatam.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)(SSFM,
4/1/01, p.42)

1799 May 23, Thomas Hood
(d.1845), English poet, composer (Song of the Shirt), was born. "I
saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence,
listening To silence."
(AP, 9/23/98)(MC, 5/23/02)

1799 May, In Saint-Domingue
(later Haiti) Gen. Toussaint L’Ouverture signed a trade agreement
with Britain. Certain elements were kept secret in order not to
alienate France.
(ON, 2/10, p.8)

1799 Jul 3, In Saint-Domingue
(later Haiti) Gen. Toussaint L’Ouverture formally declared Gen.
Andre Rigaud, the leader of a revolutionary army in the south and
west of Saint-Domingue, a rebel.
(ON, 2/10, p.8)